


Day of the Time Lords

by Shadowblade217



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: AU for the John Simm!Master, Takes place during "Day of the Doctor"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:47:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27394456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowblade217/pseuds/Shadowblade217
Summary: After sacrificing himself to save the universe, the Master finds himself somewhere highly unusual, and reunites with the Doctor to witness the most impossible day in creation.
Kudos: 13





	1. The Silence of the Drums

_Beyond time and space..._

He regained consciousness slowly, and immediately wished he hadn't. The feeling currently carving its way into his brain felt like a mixture of an enraged tyrannosaur, a plasma drill, and the worst hangover imaginable.

The last thing he remembered was that day: the last day of his life.

_First, victory._

His triumphant resurrection, brought back from the dead by his loyal servants. Using stolen technology to overwrite the DNA of every human being on Earth with his own, turning every human into a clone of himself.

_Second, confrontation._

Then, that man. The only man in the entire universe who could always find him, who could always stop him.

The Doctor. Leaping, impossibly, from a spaceship and crashing through the roof of his command center, intending to kill him.

_Third, despair._

And then the revelation. The discovery that his entire life was a fabrication, a construct of the Time Lords. The sound of drums in his head, which had tormented him since he was a child, had been planted there deliberately by Rassilon and the High Council. They had put him through hell, solely so that they could use him to escape from the Time War.

_Fourth, battle._

Finally, his confrontation with Rassilon and the Doctor, as Gallifrey materialized in the skies of Earth, soon to be followed by all the horrors of the Time War.

The Doctor, wavering between shooting either him or Rassilon. Then making the decision, shooting the whitepoint star that the Time Lords had sent to Earth instead, breaking the link between Earth and Gallifrey.

Rassilon lashing out at the Doctor, infuriated by his defeat. The Master countering, intercepting the enraged President, forcing him back with blasts of deadly energy. Walking forward, driving him back into the Time Lock, even as the link collapsed and the Time Lords were drawn back into the war.

He could remember that fight in flashes, hard to hold on to. After a while, he had barely been conscious of himself anymore, knowing only the battle.

* * *

_He was fire and his enemy was ice and he was light and it was darkness and he burned it and it froze him and he blasted it and it stung him and it screamed and it burned and burned and burned..._

* * *

He had been drawn with them, pulled back into the war that he had sacrificed his identity to hide from, locked in his own personal fight to the death. But, in the moments before he fell back into the seal, he pulled away. He pulled back, fighting his way back to the outside, back to the Doctor, back to the world of the living, rather than the hellish oblivion that awaited him within the war.

But, instead of finding the Earth and the Doctor, he kept falling. Endlessly, tumbling end-over-end through the multicolored whirlwind of the Vortex, feeling the deadly energy burning every point on his body, hardly able to hear his own screams over the roaring in his ears, in his mind.

And then, eventually, everything around him went black.

He knew nothing more for an eternity, until he finally woke up.

* * *

Slowly, he opened his eyes and picked himself up, blinking and wearily rubbing his eyes as his senses adjusted to the light. He winced again as the memories flooded back into his mind, flashes of that terrible struggle. Trying not to think about it, he focused on his surroundings. There were trees all around him, with sunlight shining dimly through them.

He examined his surroundings, confused. Something felt wrong. He tilted his head, frowning. It wasn't an external sensation: rather, it was the absence of something internal.

The drums were gone.

That ceaseless beat, the never-ending rhythm in his head, had vanished. In its place was only silence.

All things considered, it was a very strange feeling. Those drums had ruled his thoughts for longer than he could remember. Through all of his regenerations, all of his life, dying and returning from beyond the grave, they had _always_ been there. But now they were gone, and…

The Master frowned. Now that they were gone, he felt… different. He had never felt so clear-headed in his life. He felt… _free_.

He smiled faintly, hearing the chirping of birds in the trees overhead as a gust of wind ruffled his blonde hair. Raising a hand, he examined it as if he was seeing it for the first time.

"Now, then," he muttered, turning in a circle and looking around. "Body seems to be intact… more than intact, actually." _That_ was what felt different: the odd sensations that he'd been feeling ever since his botched resurrection ceremony had vanished, as if his body had reverted to normal. The constant, ravenous hunger, like a gnawing sensation in his gut, had completely disappeared, and he no longer felt like he had an endless rush of nervous energy flowing through him. He felt like his old self again, before Lucy Saxon's bullet and his own refusal to regenerate had ended his life.

"Must've been a side effect of being exposed to the raw time energy of the Vortex," he murmured thoughtfully. "Restored my genetic makeup to its normal setting." Looking up at the sky overhead and blinking as he raised a hand to shield his eyes, he considered. "Now… where exactly am I? If I had to guess, I'd say Earth, but…"

The distant sound of a woman's scream echoed through the woods, instantly drawing his attention. His head snapped around, locking onto the sound like a hunting dog on point.

His lips curved in a grin. "Oh, good. Trouble: that's very me." Bursting into motion, he raced off into the forest.

* * *

After running for several minutes, he paused when he heard the same woman's voice echoing through the trees. This time, however, she was shouting a word. A very particular word, which he immediately recognized as a name.

" _Doctor!_ "

The Master's eyes widened. "Oh, you have _got_ to be kidding me," he muttered. A faint grin flickered across his face, and he began sprinting towards the source of the voice.

A few moments later, he suddenly caught sight of another figure dashing through the trees, about a hundred yards away. Even at that distance, the familiar profile and the brown suit were instantly recognizable.

Chuckling to himself, the Master darted towards the man, coming to a stop and concealing himself behind a tree once he drew close enough to hear what he was saying.

"…I am the Doctor," the man was saying. "I'm nine hundred and four years old; I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterberous; I am the Oncoming Storm, the bringer of darkness, and _you_ … are basically just a rabbit, aren't you?"

Glancing out from behind the tree, the Master almost burst out laughing at the sight of the Doctor, looking almost exactly the same as he had when they'd last met, standing over a large gray rabbit that was sitting at the base of the tree, nibbling on some moss.

"Okay, carry on: just a general… warning." Groaning in frustration, the Doctor held up a large rectangular device and frowned, scratching his head with one hand while shaking the device with the other, producing a series of clicks, beeps and whistles. Clearly, whatever that thing was, it wasn't working the way it was supposed to.

Another scream of "Doctor!" echoed through the trees, and the Doctor whirled towards it and took off running again. The Master waited a few seconds, until he was far enough behind to avoid detection, and then started running in pursuit.

After running for some time, the Doctor finally burst into an open clearing in the trees. The Master skidded to a halt and ducked behind another tree at the edge of the clearing, and then looked out into the clearing to see the Doctor crouching beside a red-haired woman wearing a golden dress, in a style reminiscent of Earth during the Middle Ages.

He frowned, realization starting to dawn as he looked more closely at the woman's face, recognizing her from his knowledge of Earth history. _Is that… Queen Elizabeth the First?_

His lips curved in a smirk. _My, my, Doctor, you do get around, don't you?_

"That thing!" the woman – Queen Elizabeth, apparently – exclaimed as the Doctor helped her to her feet. "Explain what it is! What does it want of us?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out," the Doctor explained. "Probably just your planet."

Abruptly, another female voice called, "Doctor!" The Doctor, Elizabeth, and the Master all turned towards the source of the voice, only to see an exact duplicate of Elizabeth walk into the clearing.

"Step away from her, Doctor," the other Elizabeth ordered. "That's not me; that's the creature."

"How is that possible?" the first Elizabeth gasped. "She's me! Doctor, she's me!"

Still hidden behind the tree, the Master groaned. _Oh, god, not a shapeshifter. I_ hate _shapeshifters!_

"I am, indeed, _me,_ " the other Elizabeth retorted. "A compliment which cannot be extended to yourself."

"Extraordinary!" the first one marveled. "The creature has captured my exact likeness! This is exceptional!"

The second raised an eyebrow. "Exceptional? A queen would call it impertinent."

"A queen," the first shot back, "would be compelled to admire the skill of the execution. Before arranging one."

"It's not working!" the Doctor muttered in irritation, shaking the device he was carrying next to his ear.

"One might surmise that the creature would learn quickly to protect itself from any simple means of detection," the first Elizabeth remarked.

"Clearly you understand the creature better than I," the second replied. "But then, you have the advantage."

"Okay, _enough of this!_ " the Master finally snapped, stepping out from behind the tree. "God, I hate arguing doppelgangers!"

A moment later, he realized that all three pairs of eyes were now focused on him.

"Oh." He took a step back towards the tree, and then thought better of it, flashing a trademark grin as he glanced between the three of them. "Well, this is awkward. So sorry to interrupt."

"You?" the Doctor whispered, his eyes wide in shock, drawing the Master's attention. "Master? How…"

The Master grinned. "Ah, Doctor. Lovely to see you again." He raised an eyebrow. "What? You didn't really think a little fall like that would've been enough to get rid of me, did you?"

"How can you be here?" The Doctor took a hesitant step forward. "You died. I saw it, on the _Valiant_. Your wife, she… she shot you, and you wouldn't regenerate. I…" For a moment, the Master was actually convinced he was about to start crying. "I watched you die."

"My love, who is this man?" one of the Elizabeths demanded.

"Yes, who is he?" the other added.

Understandably, the Master was very confused by this point. True, all of the stuff the Doctor had just mentioned _had_ happened: but then, later on, the Master had been resurrected and they'd fought against each other again, only to team up against the Time Lords' attempt to escape the Time War and end the universe. How could the Doctor have forgotten that?

Unless…

That's when the realization of what had just happened hit him.

"Oh, god, we just met in the wrong order, didn't we?" the Master sighed. "Perfect." He looked up at the Doctor. "Okay, look: it's a long story, and if I tell you too much of it we'd cause a paradox that would rip the universe in half, so I should probably just leave before–"

Suddenly, with a flash of light, a swirling vortex, like a whirlpool of yellow light, materialized in midair, hovering above the four of them. The Doctor, the Master, and the two Elizabeths whirled to face it.

"Back, all of you!" the Doctor ordered, pulling the two Elizabeths behind him protectively.

"That…" The Master frowned. "That's not possible."

The Doctor nodded, his eyes wide. "That's a tear in the fabric of reality. Anything could happen!"

With a flash of light, a small object fell out of the vortex. Taking a step forward, the Doctor picked it up, revealing it to be a red fez with a tassel.

"For instance… a fez," the Doctor commented.

A voice suddenly echoed from within the vortex, calling out, _"Geronimoooooooooo!"_ A moment later, with a much larger flash of light, a humanoid figure burst out of the vortex and slammed to the ground a few yards away. The figure sat up, revealed as a young man with tousled dark hair, wearing a tweed jacket, matching pants, and a red bow tie.

The Doctor straightened up, placing the fez on his head, as the young man hopped to his feet. He stared at the Doctor for a long moment, his eyes wide.

"And who the hell is this?" the Master demanded.

"That's just what I was wondering," the Doctor replied.

"Oh, very skinny," the young man murmured, staring fixedly at the Doctor. "That is proper skinny." He turned sideways, looking down at himself. "Never seen it from the outside; it's like a special effect!" Marching up to the Doctor, he knocked the fez off his head with a sweep of his arm. "Oi, matchstick man!"

The Doctor's own eyes widened in shock as he looked more closely at the other man. "You're not…" he whispered.

Each man looked the other up and down, before slowly reaching into their inner jacket pockets. Each of them withdrew a cylindrical metal object, which the Master recognized as a sonic screwdriver. The Doctor's glowed blue, while the newcomer's lit up green. With a flick of the stranger's wrist, metal prongs sprang out of the sides of his screwdriver, surrounding the glowing green light at one end. The Doctor replied by adjusting a switch on the side, extending his own screwdriver.

"Compensating?" the Doctor questioned, raising an eyebrow.

The young man frowned. "For what?"

"Regeneration: it's a lottery."

"Oh, he's cool. Isn't he cool?" the young man snarked. "I'm the Doctor, and I'm all cool: oops, I'm wearing sandshoes!" He pointed to the Doctor's shoes with a grin.

"What are you doing here?" the Doctor protested. "I'm busy!"

"Oh, _busy_ , is that what we're calling it?" The younger man snatched up the fez from where it had fallen and placed it triumphantly back on his head.

While the Master had never crossed paths with any of his other regenerations, past or future, he was still a Time Lord, and for him, it didn't take much effort to work out what was going on here.

"Oh, my god," he muttered. "As if this situation wasn't confusing enough already, now there's _two of you?_ And…" He frowned. "You just keep getting younger, don't you? Well, that's… incredibly unfair."

Both of them had already turned back to face him by this point, registering his presence. The Doctor still looked alarmed, but the new arrival was absolutely stunned.

"W…What?" he murmured. "Master? How did you…"

"Okay, I'm guessing _you_ , at least, remember where you saw me last, right?" the Master asked, cutting him off. "The Gate, the whitepoint star, all that stuff?"

The newcomer nodded in confirmation.

"Well, it hasn't happened to him yet." The Master indicated the Doctor who was familiar to him. "So we probably shouldn't talk about that. Suffice to say, for me, all of that stuff just happened. And, before you ask: no, I have no idea how I got out of that, and no, I have no idea how I ended up here, so let's just move on, shall we?"

After considering that for a moment, the newcomer shrugged. "Fair enough. Well, in that case…" His attention shifted to the two identical women standing behind them, who he promptly made an elaborate, sweeping bow towards. " _Hello_ , ladies!"

"Don't start!" the younger Doctor warned him.

"Listen, what you get up to in the privacy of your own regeneration is your business," the older, bow-tied one remarked.

"One of them is a Zygon," the younger one explained.

"Ooh." The older one blinked. "I'm not judging you."

"Oh, so _that's_ it!" the Master realized, snapping his fingers. "Of course it's Zygons. Brilliant: I haven't seen those for centuries!"

"You _would_ be excited," the older Doctor muttered.

They were interrupted by an abrupt crackling sound, coming from the vortex. The Master and both Doctors turned to gaze intently at it: each of the Doctors donned a pair of glasses (rectangular-lensed for the younger one, round-lensed for the older one) and smiled when they noticed the other's, remarking, "Oh, lovely," simultaneously.

"Your Majesties," the older Doctor called, "now might be a good time to run."

" _But what about the creature?_ " both Elizabeths asked simultaneously.

"Elizabeth," the younger Doctor instructed, "whichever one of you is the real one, turn and run in the opposite direction to the other one."

"Oh, yes, because that's a foolproof plan," the Master scoffed.

"Oh, like you've got a better one," the older Doctor shot back.

" _Of course, my love!_ " both Elizabeths responded to the younger Doctor, ignoring the other two men.

The first stepped forward, saying, "Stay alive, my love; I am not done with you yet!" She kissed the Doctor on the lips, before rushing off into the woods.

"I understand," the other Elizabeth added as she hurried up to the younger Doctor. "Live for me, my darling! We shall be together again!" She also kissed him passionately, before hurrying off in the opposite direction.

Left alone, the three Time Lords exchanged glances.

"Well, won't that be nice," the younger Doctor managed.

"So… one of those was a Zygon, huh?" the Master inquired.

"Yep," the younger Doctor replied.

"Big red rubbery thing, covered in suckers," the older Doctor remarked.

"Yep."

The Master weighed in again. "Venom sacs in the tongue."

"Yeah, I'm getting the point, thank you," the younger Doctor cut him off.

" _Doctor, is that you?"_ a soft female voice called from within the vortex.

"Ah, hello, Clara, can you hear me?" the older Doctor called out, taking a few steps forward.

" _Yeah, it's me: we can hear you. Where are you?"_

The older Doctor frowned, turning to his younger self. "Where are we?"

"Yeah, I was going to ask that myself," the Master put in.

"England, 1562," the younger Doctor answered promptly.

" _Who are you talking to?"_ the voice queried, sounding puzzled.

"Myself," both Doctors said simultaneously, causing them to exchange grins.

" _Can you come back through?"_ an older woman's voice called from the vortex.

"Physical passage may not be possible in both directions…" the older Doctor mused. He perked up a moment later, raising a hand. "Ah! Hang on…" Removing the fez from his head, he took a step forward, hollered " _Fez incoming!_ ", and pitched it directly into the vortex.

They waited for a long moment, only for the younger woman's voice to reply, " _Nothing here._ "

"Well, where's it gone, then?" the Master wondered, tapping his chin with one index finger contemplatively.

* * *

After waiting for a couple of minutes to see if the fez would reappear on either end, with no success, the younger Doctor glanced to his older self. "Okay, you used to be me, you've done all this before: what happens next?"

The older one shook his head. "I don't remember."

The Master frowned. "You don't remember? How could you possibly forget _this?_ " He indicated the three of them with a wave of his arm.

"Hang on, it's not my fault!" the older Doctor protested. "He obviously wasn't paying enough attention!" He pointed to his younger self.

"What, like this is _my_ fault?" the younger one snapped.

"Oh, just forget it," the older one muttered. "Reverse the polarity!" He nodded to the vortex.

Both Doctors removed their sonic screwdrivers from their pockets and stepped forward, aiming them at the vortex and activating them. The buzzing sound of the screwdrivers continued uninterrupted for several seconds, but nothing happened.

"It's not working," the Master observed.

"I can see that," the older Doctor snapped.

"We're both reversing the polarity," the younger one realized.

The older one frowned. "Yes, I know that."

"I'm reversing it, you're reversing it back again: we're _confusing_ the polarity."

For a long moment, the Master seriously contemplated facepalming.

Another flash of light and a rushing sound instantly drew their attention back to the vortex, just as another humanoid figure emerged from it, landing on his feet. He was an elderly man with white hair and a short beard, clad in roughly made, brown leather clothes.

"Oh, dear god, who the hell is _this_ now?" the Master groaned.

"Anyone lose a fez?" the old man inquired, holding up the older Doctor's fez in one hand.

The Master looked over, raising an eyebrow as his gaze fell on the two Doctors. For some reason, they were both staring at the new arrival with what could best be described as expressions of absolute horror.

"You," the younger Doctor breathed. "How can you be here? More to the point, _why_ are you here?"

The older man blinked. "Good afternoon," he greeted them. "I'm… looking for the Doctor."

The two Doctors exchanged glances.

"Well," the younger one managed, "you've certainly come to the right place."

"Oh, good, right." The old man smiled faintly. "Well, who are you boys?" He glanced back and forth among the three of them. "Oh, of course. Are you his companions?"

The Master had to clasp a hand over his mouth to keep himself from bursting out in hysterical laughter.

"His _companions?_ " the younger Doctor asked incredulously.

"They get younger all the time." The old man's eyes widened questioningly. "Well, if you could point me in the general direction of the Doctor?"

Without speaking, both of the Doctors produced and activated their sonic screwdrivers.

The old man stared at them in disbelief. "Really?" he asked.

Both Doctors nodded.

"Yeah," the one in tweed said.

"Really," the brown-suited one added.

"You're _me?_ " The old man glanced questioningly back and forth between them.

The Master's eyes widened. _Wait, what? Another one?!_

"Yep," both Doctors muttered simultaneously.

"Both of you?"

"Yeah," the brown-suited Doctor replied flatly.

The old man – the Doctor – frowned. "Even that one?" He pointed to the older Doctor.

"Yes!" the Doctor in question exclaimed.

"You're my future selves?"

" _Yes!_ " they both shouted.

"Am I having a midlife crisis?" The old man took a step forward, but stopped short as both of the other Doctors immediately pointed their sonic screwdrivers defensively at him. "Why are you pointing your screwdrivers like that?" he questioned. "They're scientific instruments, not water pistols!" He glanced over, noticing the Master for the first time. "And who are you?" he inquired curiously. "Don't tell me you're me too!"

The Master chuckled. "No, no, I'm not you. But we do know each other very well… Doctor." He smirked.

It took a few seconds for the old man to realize it, but the Master could tell exactly when he figured it out by the widening of his eyes. "Master? You're alive?"

Nodding, the Master shrugged. "Long story. Not sure how much of it I should tell you, to be honest." His eyes flicked over to the other two Doctors. "I take it this one's a past version: does he know about the…" He trailed off meaningfully.

"Yes, he knows about the Time War," the oldest Doctor replied.

The brown-suited one sighed. "He's the one who fought in it, actually."

"Ah, got it." The Master turned back to face the old man. "In that case, it's actually pretty simple: the Time Lords resurrected me to fight in the war."

"Ah." The old man nodded understandingly. "You seem to have let yourself go a bit," he added, clearly referring to the Master's ragged, scorched clothing, a souvenir of his fall through the Vortex.

"Hey!" the Master protested. "This–" he indicated his clothes with a wave of his hand "–was not my fault!"

The other two Doctors, meanwhile, had been observing the argument. "Loving the posh, gravelly thing," the brown-suited one observed. "It's very convincing."

"Brave words, Dick van Dyke," the older one replied.

A moment later, the sounds of men shouting echoed through the trees, as a group of armed soldiers appeared, quickly surrounding the four men. The brown-suited and bow-tied Doctors immediately raised their sonic screwdrivers again, pointing them at the soldiers, while the Master raised both of his arms in preparation to fire blasts of energy from his hands.

One of the soldiers, wearing a more elaborate outfit than the others, stepped forward. "Which of you is the Doctor?" he demanded. "The Queen of England is bewitched. I would have the Doctor's head!"

The old man smiled. "Well," he said cheerfully, "this has all the makings of your lucky day."

The Master smiled to himself. _Oh, this is going to be good._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone! I hope you all enjoyed the first chapter of my newest story, Day of the Time Lords! I came up with this story as a way to show what "Day of the Doctor" would have been like if the Master were present, and also as a way to explore what happened to the Master between his disappearance in "The End of Time" and the character's return as Missy/the Mistress in Series 8. Hopefully, I'll be able to tie all of that together in a way that makes sense and will be fun for everyone to read.
> 
> I love getting feedback from my readers, so if anyone has any questions or comments regarding this chapter or the story as a whole, please review! (No hate, please: that's not fun for anyone).


	2. The Lords of Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Master and the Doctors do a bit of catching up in a 1562 prison cell, before going into action to try and foil the Zygons' master plan.

_The forests of England, 1562_

For a long moment, the four Time Lords stood back-to-back, glancing around at the soldiers encircling them.

"Allow me," the Master said offhandedly, flexing his arms before shoving one hand, palm-outwards, towards the nearest soldiers, expecting a blast of electric energy to emerge. To his surprise, however, nothing happened.

"…I'm sorry, was that supposed to do something?" the old man inquired.

"Huh," the Master murmured to himself, examining his hands. "I figured that the raw energy of the Vortex had returned my genetic makeup to its normal setting, but apparently it must've eliminated the energy projection ability that came with the alterations." He frowned. "Well, that's inconvenient."

"Silence!" the leader of the soldiers ordered, raising his sword. "Which of you is the Doctor?"

"Ah, right." The Master grinned, promptly turning and indicating the brown-suited Doctor he was familiar with. "That would be him."

The Doctor whirled on him. "Hey!"

The Master, unfazed, raised an eyebrow. "What? You're actually surprised? Clearly you don't know me as well as you think, Doctor."

Abruptly, they were interrupted by the sound of the softer female voice from before, echoing from the vortex overhead. _"I think there's three of them now,"_ she murmured. _"Or maybe four; I'm not sure."_

" _There's a precedent for that,"_ the older woman's voice replied.

All of the soldiers, drawn by the voices, were now staring, stunned, at the swirling golden vortex.

"What is that?" the leader demanded, taking a step forward. Both the brown-suited and bow-tied Doctors reacted immediately, raising their sonic screwdrivers to point at him.

"Oh, with the pointing again," the old man protested. "They're screwdrivers! What're you going to do, assemble a cabinet at them?"

Reluctantly, both Doctors exchanged glances and lowered their screwdrivers.

"That thing… what witchcraft is it?" the leader of the soldiers interrupted again.

"Ah, yes!" the bow-tied Doctor exclaimed, taking a step towards the soldiers. "Now that you mention it, that _is_ witchcraft. Yes, yes, yes, witchy… witchcraft." He turned to face the vortex, taking a few steps forward so that he was standing directly underneath the portal. "Hello?" he called loudly. "Hello in there? Excuse me? Hello! Am I talking to the Wicked Witch of the Well?"

The Master raised an eyebrow, but didn't bother saying anything, assuming that the Doctor had some idea of where he was going with this.

"Clara?" the Doctor called again.

" _Hello?"_ the younger woman's voice called.

"Clara, hi, hello," the Doctor replied immediately. "Would you mind telling these prattling mortals to get themselves begone?"

" _What… he said."_

"Yes, a tiny bit more color!" the Doctor hissed.

" _Oh, right."_ She paused. _"Um… prattling mortals, off you pop! Or I'll… turn you all into frogs!"_

All of the soldiers flinched back from the portal, glancing about nervously at that threat.

The Master smirked. _Nothing like some good old-fashioned human superstition. I'd almost forgotten why I enjoyed this period of their history so much._

"Oh, frogs! Nice." The future Doctor smiled. "You heard her."

" _Doctor, what's going on?"_ the girl's voice called anxiously.

"It's a… timey-wimey thing," the Doctor explained vaguely.

"Timey-what?" the old man asked blankly. "Timey-wimey?"

"I've got no idea where he picks that stuff up," the brown-suited Doctor claimed quietly.

Suddenly, without any fanfare, Queen Elizabeth emerged from the trees and strolled into the clearing, drawing the attention of the onlookers.

" _The Queen!_ " the soldiers exclaimed in unison, dropping to their knees as one. Only the Master and the three Doctors remained standing.

Elizabeth smiled in amusement as she examined the four men. "You don't seem to be kneeling," she remarked. "How tremendously brave of you."

"Which one are you?" the brown-suited Doctor asked. "What happened to the other one?"

"Oh, yes, because we can definitely believe anything she tells us," the Master muttered sardonically.

"Indisposed," Elizabeth replied offhandedly. She smiled coolly. "Long live the Queen."

" _Long live the Queen!_ " the soldiers chorused.

"Arrest these men," Elizabeth ordered matter-of-factly. "Take them to the Tower."

"That is not the Queen of England, that is an alien duplicate!" the brown-suited Doctor yelled, pointing accusingly at the queen.

"And you can take it from him because he's really checked," his bow-tied counterpart snarked.

"Oh, shut up!" the brown-suited one protested.

"Apparently a surprisingly good kisser," the Master remarked.

"Oh, not you too–"

"Venom sacs in the tongue," the bow-tied Doctor added.

"Seriously, both of you, stop it!"

Abruptly, the bow-tied Doctor whipped around to refocus his attention on Elizabeth. "No, hang on: the Tower! Did you say the Tower?" He grinned. "Ah, yes, brilliant, love the Tower! Breakfast at eight, please. Will there be Wi-Fi?"

"Are you capable of speaking without flapping your hands about?" the old man asked.

"Yes! No!" the bow-tied Doctor snapped, spreading his hands and then clapping them together as he spoke. Turning back to Elizabeth, he continued, "I demand to be incarcerated in the Tower immediately with my co-conspirators Vagrant, Sandshoes and Granddad." As he spoke, he jerked a thumb back over his shoulder to indicate each of the other three in turn.

"Granddad?" the old man exclaimed.

" _Vagrant?!_ " the Master yelled in a furious tone, looking down at his scorched, torn outfit (which consisted of a black hoodie, a red T-shirt, a pair of dark gray pants and black shoes).

"They're not sandshoes!" the brown-suited Doctor insisted.

The old man glanced at the shoes in question and snorted. "Yes, they are!"

"Silence!" the Queen snapped. Her eyes narrowed. "The Tower is not to be taken lightly. Very few emerge again."

"Yeah, well, they haven't had us in there yet," the Master quipped as the soldiers escorted the four of them off into the forest.

* * *

"All right, you lot, get in there!" the jailer ordered, opening the door as the four men were shoved into the cell one by one. The guards filed out, and the cell door slammed shut behind them, leaving the four Time Lords alone.

"I have to say, I've had worse," the Master observed, pacing around the cell and examining its design.

"Three of us in one cell: that's going to cause some nasty anomalies if we don't get out soon," the brown-suited Doctor – who, from their brief conversation during their walk through the forest, was supposedly the Tenth Doctor – commented. He frowned, glancing over at his bow-tied counterpart. "What are you doing?"

The bow-tied Doctor – the Eleventh, apparently – had found a long metal nail and was currently scraping something into one of the cell's stone pillars. He glanced back when the question registered and shrugged. "Getting us out."

Meanwhile, the old man – who, the Master now knew, was referred to by the other incarnations as the War Doctor – was in the process of scanning the wooden cell door with his own sonic screwdriver. The jewel on its end was glowing red, an interesting counterpoint to the blue and green screwdrivers used by the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors.

"The sonic won't work on that," the Tenth informed him. "Too primitive."

Sighing, the War Doctor nodded in agreement and turned away from the door.

"Never thought I'd want to have that power back," the Master muttered to himself as he clenched his hands a couple of times, "but it would definitely be helpful right now." He shot a glare at the cell door. He'd always had a hatred of being caged, and the fact that there were three Doctors in here with him wasn't making it any easier to relax.

"Shall we ask for a better quality of door so we can escape?" the Eleventh remarked cheekily, before he returned to scraping away at the pillar.

"Okay," the Master muttered, pacing around the cell. "So, the Queen of England is now a Zygon."

The Tenth Doctor nodded. "But never mind that: why are we all together? Why are we all here?" He turned, focusing his gaze on the War Doctor, who was sitting on a chair next to the cell door.

The War Doctor blinked quizzically, looking up at him.

"Sorry, what's he got to do with all of us being here?" the Master inquired, leaning against a pillar across from the Eleventh.

"Well, me and… Chinny–" the Tenth nodded to the Eleventh "–we were surprised." He glanced over to the Master. "I'm not going to question how you're alive, since I apparently find out how at some point in my future, but you were just as surprised as the rest of us to end up here." His eyes flicked back to the War Doctor. "But _you_ came looking for the two of us." He indicated himself and the Eleventh. "You knew it was going to happen: who told you?"

For a moment, the Master swore he could hear a woman's voice chuckling. When he glanced around, though, the sound vanished.

"Oi!" the Eleventh shot back, having just registered the comment. "'Chinny'?"

"To be fair, you do have a… prominent… chin," the Master replied.

"Oh, shut up." With that, the Eleventh returned to scraping away at the pillar.

* * *

Several hours passed, and the Master was remembering why Time Lords, as a rule, hated boredom. The Eleventh Doctor was still etching his message, a series of seemingly random numbers, into the pillar. The Tenth, on the other hand, was still moving about the room, tossing his sonic screwdriver from hand to hand, trying to keep busy. Finally, the War Doctor was still seated in the chair next to the cell door, and hadn't moved from his seat in some time. Eventually, he got back up and started scanning the door again, clearly continuing his search for a way out.

The War Doctor was the one who eventually broke the silence. "In theory," he said, continuing his scan of the door, "I can trigger an isolated sonic shift among the molecules, and the door should disintegrate."

The Master scoffed. "Are you kidding? To do that, you'd have to calculate the exact harmonic resonance of the entire door on a subatomic level."

The Tenth nodded in agreement. "He's right. Even with the sonic, it'd take years."

Sighing, the War Doctor finished his scan. "No, no: the sonic would take _centuries_." He sat down again, examining the readouts on his screwdriver. "Well, we might as well get started. Help to pass the timey-wimey." He glanced back and forth between the three of them. "Do you all have to talk like children? What is it that makes you so ashamed of being a grown-up?"

Both of the other two Doctors refocused on him immediately. They looked at him, but seemed unable to maintain eye contact and kept glancing away.

The Master frowned. Initially, he'd had no idea why these two Doctors seemed to dislike their past incarnation so much… but after their explanation that the War Doctor, as his title implied, was the Doctor who'd fought in the Time War, ideas were slowly creeping into his mind.

"Oh, the way you both look at me," the War Doctor murmured, drawing the Master's attention back to the conversation. "What is that?" He frowned. "I'm trying to think of a better word than 'dread'."

For a long moment, the Tenth and the Eleventh remained silent.

"It must be really recent for you," the Tenth said quietly.

"Recent?" The War Doctor raised his eyebrows questioningly.

"The Time War," the Eleventh murmured. "The last day: the day you killed them all."

"The day _we_ killed them all," the Tenth corrected.

"Same thing."

The Master's eyes widened in shock and realization. "So it _was_ you," he realized, taking a slow step forward and focusing on the War Doctor. "When he–" he indicated the Tenth with one hand "–told me that he was the one who wiped out the Time Lords and Daleks, I didn't believe it at first. But now…" He might have laughed under other circumstances. "Now I understand why they act this way around you. They're ashamed to acknowledge you, aren't they? Both of them. And all because of what you did when there was no other way."

The War Doctor gazed evenly back at him with tired eyes. "I don't talk about it," he said hoarsely.

"You're not talking about it," the Tenth replied. "There's no one else here."

"Well, except me, of course, but I'm hardly going to judge," the Master pointed out.

After another long moment, the War Doctor looked over towards his older selves and the Master. "Did you ever count?" he asked slowly.

The Master raised an eyebrow. _Count? What's he talking about?_

The two older Doctors also seemed confused. "Count what?" the Tenth inquired.

Rubbing his eyes, the War Doctor sighed. "How many children there were on Gallifrey that day."

The Master's eyes widened in shock, and he actually felt a tinge of pain and horror deep within his mind. The Time Lords, after all, had been his people too.

The Eleventh Doctor paused in his etching the numbers into the pillar. He knelt motionless for a moment, and then stated, "I have absolutely no idea."

Sitting up straighter, the War Doctor frowned at his older self. "How old are you now?" he asked curiously.

"Ah…" The Eleventh considered. "I don't know: I lose track. Twelve hundred and something, I think, unless I'm lying." He shrugged. "I can't remember if I'm lying about my age: that's how old I am."

"Four hundred years older than me." The War Doctor blinked. "And in all that time, you never even wondered how many there were? You never once counted?"

This hit a nerve: the Eleventh stood and turned to face his younger self. "Tell me… what would be the point?" he asked.

"Two-point-four-seven billion," the Tenth said flatly.

The Master's eyes widened. "So you _did_ count!"

The Tenth nodded, glaring at his older self. "You _forgot?_ " he snapped, stalking forwards. "Four hundred years? Is that all it takes?"

The Eleventh turned to face him, his own eyes cold. "I moved on," he replied.

"Where?!" the Tenth demanded. "Where can you be now that you can forget something like _that?_ "

"Spoilers."

"No! No, no, no." The Tenth glared at the Eleventh furiously. "For once, I would like to know where I'm going."

"No, you really wouldn't!" the Eleventh snapped.

"I don't know who you are," the War Doctor said softly, looking back and forth between the two of them. "Either of you. I haven't the faintest idea." He glanced over to the Master, who was seated on the floor and leaning back against one of the pillars. "You, at least, are something like what I remember. But… you've changed too, haven't you?"

After considering for a moment, the Master nodded. "Yeah, I suppose I have." He smiled faintly. "Then again, dying and being resurrected – twice – will do that to you." His gaze shifted slowly to the Tenth, then to the Eleventh. "But I do know one thing. There's no way I've changed as much as you have."

He smirked, gesturing to the War Doctor, the Tenth and the Eleventh in turn. "Just a couple of regenerations and four hundred years, and look at the three of you. The battle-scarred warrior who made an unthinkable sacrifice for the sake of the universe by butchering his own people; the man who regrets everything he did and lives a life filled with guilt; and the man who abandons it all and forgets everything by telling himself there would be no point in remembering." His eyes gleamed. "I'm curious, Doctor: which of you would you say is the biggest hypocrite?"

Identical glares from the three of them fixed on him, but he seemed unaffected. "On the whole, I'd have to say it's you, though." He extended an index finger, pointing to the Eleventh. "I met him," he said, indicating the Tenth with a jerk of his head, "about three hundred years ago in your timeline. He was utterly consumed by the guilt of what he'd done, and felt that he had to do anything – even save me, after everything I'd done to him and to his precious Earth – to atone for what he'd done that day." He closed his eyes for a moment. "True, I threw that kindness back in his face and let myself die just to spite him, but, I mean, come on, I'm _me_. And there was no way I was letting you lock me up for the next thousand years." Blinking, he glanced over to the Tenth. "No offense."

The Tenth Doctor nodded slowly, but didn't respond.

"But you…" The Master chuckled darkly, rising to his feet and facing the Eleventh. "You seem to have stopped caring about it entirely. And you actually try to excuse yourself by saying that you've moved on? _You_ , Doctor? You've spent twelve hundred years and a dozen different regenerations clinging to your past, to your friends, and to this pathetic little planet that you care about so much. And you expect me to believe that in three hundred years, you've completely moved on from _burning your entire species?_ "

The Eleventh Doctor shot to his feet, his eyes blazing with cold rage. " _You're_ going to lecture _me_ about my crimes? _You?!_ " He stalked forward towards the Master, his voice cracking out like a whip, every syllable filled with anger. "I stopped counting the list of _your_ victims half a dozen lifetimes ago, and I've seen the death and destruction that you've inflicted across history a thousand different times over the years. I did what I did because there was no other way: you did what you did because you _wanted to_. So don't you _dare_ try to lecture me about that, because we all know very well how good you are at forgetting your own atrocities."

That was when the Master hit him.

The punch came out of nowhere, catching the Doctor solidly across the face and flooring him. Both the Tenth and the War Doctor straightened up, eyes wide, wincing in sympathy.

As the Eleventh picked himself up, the Master grabbed him by the collar and slammed him back against the wall of the cell. "That's the _point_ , Doctor," he snarled, every syllable laden with venom. "Yes, I've done countless horrible things, and I enjoyed most of them. Yes, I've left a trail of blood and bodies across time and space. And yes, I've done plenty of things that you would never, ever do. But there are two key differences between us." His eyes blazed with rage. "First, _I live with what I've done_. I live with it every day, and don't think that a day goes by when I don't regret at least one of my past actions. But I still live with it. You, on the other hand, choose to _forget_." He made the word _forget_ sound like a curse. With a growl, he released the Eleventh's shirt and backed off, slamming a fist against one of the pillars to release some of his anger.

The War Doctor frowned. "What's the second difference? You said there were two."

Slowly, the Master turned back, looking at all three of them this time. "The second difference," he rasped, his voice hoarse from his rant, "is that, yes, I am the type of person who does things like that without remorse. I'm the villain. I'm the monster." A keen observer could actually see the faintest gleam of a tear at the corner of his eye.

His final statement was quiet, almost a whisper, as he sat down on the chair and closed his eyes, placing his head in his hands.

"But _you_ , Doctor _, are not me._ "

For several minutes, they sat in silence, each alone with their own thoughts. The only sound, after a couple of minutes, was the sound of the Eleventh continuing to chip away at the pillar with the nail.

Then, after about five minutes, a new sound penetrated through the quiet.

It was rather unexpected, to say the least.

The Master was _laughing_. His hands were still holding his head, but he was chuckling softly under his breath.

"What is it?" the Tenth asked, frowning.

Lifting his head, the Master sighed, a faint grin on his face again. "Nothing," he said softly. "I was just thinking things through, and I suppose I've had… an epiphany of sorts." He stood again, his gaze flicking from the War Doctor, to the Tenth, and finally to the Eleventh, who was rubbing the bruise on his cheek as he returned to his carving. "So, this is how it begins. I never actually thought it could happen, never in a million years… but here we are."

"What?" the Eleventh asked as he continued scraping away at the pillar.

The Master smiled softly. "You're turning into _him_."

Once again, three pairs of oddly similar eyes locked on him, wide and stunned. This time, two of them – the War Doctor and the Tenth – bore expressions of absolute horror, while the Eleventh was frozen to the spot and had an even greater anger burning in his eyes than before.

"Don't you _dare_ ," the Eleventh hissed after a long moment of silence.

"I'm not wrong," the Master argued. "Look at yourself, Doctor. Look at what you've become. You're becoming cold, callous, arrogant. You're willing to look past, even forget, your most horrific actions, as long as they were done for 'the greater good'. And you've started putting yourself ahead of everyone else, making your decisions based on whether they would benefit _you_ and not the humans who either of these two would give their lives for without a second thought." He smiled coldly. "This is the beginning. This is how you become the Valeyard."

At just the _sound_ of that name, a chill swept through the air of the cell. All four Time Lords felt it, but it was obvious that the three Doctors felt it much more strongly than the Master.

"That's impossible," the Tenth said. It was a statement of fact, not an argument. "I would never become him. Never. I'd sooner die."

"I agree with you there," the War Doctor added wholeheartedly.

"All the same, look at the signs," the Master pointed out. "The Valeyard was an amalgamation of the darkest parts of your nature. And considering your past and everything that you've done, that's pretty dark." He considered, tapping an index finger against his chin. "What's more, the Valeyard was supposed to be from sometime between your twelfth and final regenerations, if I remember correctly." His gaze flicked over to the Eleventh. "Which, if I'm not mistaken, is about where you're getting to at the moment. And then there's the personality changes, slowly becoming more and more ruthless and less compassionate." His smile faded. "As much as you try to deny it, Doctor, I can see the darkness in you. And it's growing. And unless you stop it, it will consume you, and you'll be him."

The Eleventh shook his head. "No. I'm not him. I will never be him. I'm nothing like him, or like you."

"Maybe that's true." The Master's voice was oddly gentle now, which was especially strange considering that he'd punched this Doctor out about two minutes earlier. "But what you did that day, sacrificing your own people to put an end to the Time War… for the greater good, in other words… that was a big step towards where I am."

As they returned to silence for a few moments, the Master noticed that the War Doctor (who had returned to his seat beside the door) was staring fixedly at something behind him. He turned, but there was nothing there except the back wall.

"No," the War Doctor said abruptly. His voice was soft, but firm.

"No?" the Tenth repeated, frowning. "'No' what?"

"Just…" The War Doctor shook his head. " _No._ "

To their surprise, the Eleventh Doctor leaned against the pillow he had been carving the message into and laughed.

The Tenth scowled. "What? Is something funny?" he snarked. "Did I miss a funny thing?"

"Sorry," the Eleventh replied, his laughter fading. "It just occurred to me: this is what I'm like when I'm alone."

"No, trust me, you're worse when you're alone," the Master muttered. He glanced over and frowned, noticing something odd.

The War Doctor, once again, appeared to be listening to something that none of the others could hear. After a few seconds, his frown suddenly shifted into a faint smile. He held up his sonic screwdriver, staring at it, and murmured, "Four hundred years…"

The Tenth Doctor frowned, turning to face them. "Sorry?"

"At a software level, they're all the same device, aren't they?" the War Doctor said, holding up his screwdriver. "Same software, different case."

The Tenth shrugged. "Yeah… so?"

"So," the War Doctor continued, excitement beginning to enter his eyes as he rose to his feet and turned to face the door again, "it would take centuries for the screwdriver to figure out how to disintegrate the door." He activated the screwdriver again and continued scanning the door, finishing the scan within seconds. " _Scanning_ the door, and implementing the calculation as a permanent subroutine in the software architecture…" He turned back to the others. "And, if you really are me, with your sandshoes and your dicky-bow, and that screwdriver is still mine…"

The Master's lips curved in a smile as he realized what the old man meant. "Then that calculation must still be going on!"

The Tenth Doctor immediately activated his own screwdriver, which lit up blue, and held it up to his ear. He grinned a moment later. "Yeah, still going."

"Calculation complete," the Eleventh finished, holding up his own glowing green screwdriver. He laughed. "Four hundred years in four seconds. We may have had our differences – which is frankly odd in the circumstances – but I tell you what, boys: we are incredibly clever!"

Just then, the cell door opened, and a young woman with shoulder-length dark hair, dressed in modern clothes, burst into the room. She stopped short, looking around at the four of them curiously.

The Eleventh had an expression of utter astonishment on his face. "How… did you do that?" he asked.

The girl shrugged. "Wasn't locked."

For a long moment, the Master seriously considered bashing his head repeatedly against the wall of the cell, but decided against it.

"…Right," the Eleventh managed, barely managing to avoid blushing.

The girl glanced around, looking at each of them in turn. "So they're all you, then, yeah?" she inquired.

"Well, these two are," the Eleventh explained, indicating the Tenth and the War Doctor. "And this is the Master: he's an old schoolmate of mine, tried to kill me at least a dozen times." He pointed to the Master with one hand, then back to the girl. "This is Clara."

The Master grinned, raising one hand in a wave. "Hi."

"Ah." The girl nodded. "Got it." She looked over at the Tenth. "Nice suit."

The Tenth grinned. "Thanks."

The girl, Clara, looked at each of them, raising an eyebrow. "Hang on. Four of you in here, and not one of you thought to try the door?"

"It should've been locked," the War Doctor mused.

"Well, why wasn't it, then?" the Master shot back.

"Yes, exactly!" the Eleventh replied. "Why wasn't it locked?"

"Because," Queen Elizabeth answered as she swept into the cell, "I was fascinated to see what you would do upon escaping." She smirked. "I understand you're rather fond of this world. I think it's time you saw what's going to happen to it." With elaborate flair, she swept out of the cell. The four Time Lords and the girl followed close behind her.

* * *

Entering the cellars of the tower, the group gazed down from the balcony they were on to see a large room filled with an eerie red light. Several large, organic-looking consoles lined the walls, manned by a group of large, red-skinned aliens, which the Master immediately recognized as Zygons in their natural state. Oddly enough, there were also a series of large landscape paintings resting against one wall.

"The Zygons lost their own world," Elizabeth explained. "It burned in the first days of the Time War." She came to a stop, gazing down proudly. "A new home is required."

"So they want this one?" the girl, who the Eleventh Doctor referred to as Clara, spoke up.

"Not yet," Elizabeth replied. "Far too primitive. Zygons are used to a certain level of comfort." She was interrupted by a bestial hiss, as one of the Zygons appeared at the top of the stairs that led down to the next level.

The Zygon glanced over the assembled prisoners and rasped, "Commander, why are these creatures here?"

"Because I say they should be," Elizabeth answered matter-of-factly. "It is time you too were translated." She glanced back to the group behind her. "Observe this. I believe you will find it fascinating."

Hissing in approval, the Zygon started towards one of the control panels, upon which rested a smooth, featureless glass cube. The creature placed its hand on top of the cube: there was a flash of light, and its form dissolved and was sucked into the cube.

With a second, smaller flash of light, an image materialized in one of the paintings, this one depicting a desert on some alien world. The image was a miniature picture of the Zygon, one arm raised, frozen in place.

"That's him!" Clara exclaimed in astonishment. "That's the Zygon in the picture now!" She walked forward a few steps, examining the painting more closely with an amazed expression on her face.

"Actually, it's not a picture," the Master corrected.

The War Doctor nodded. "It's a stasis cube. Time Lord art: frozen instants in time, bigger on the inside. But, they could be deployed as…"

"Suspended animation!" the Tenth Doctor realized. "Oh, that is very good." He walked forward to stand next to Clara, murmuring, "The Zygons all pop inside the pictures, wait a few centuries till the planet's a bit more interesting, and then out they come."

"See, Clara, they're stored in the paintings in the Undergallery," the Eleventh explained, "like Cup-a-Soups. Except you add time, if you can picture that." He frowned. "Nobody can picture that. Forget I said Cup-a-Soups."

"And now the world's worth conquering," Clara whispered. She looked up at them. "So the Zygons are invading the future, from the past?"

"Precisely," the Master replied. He grinned. "Not a bad plan, actually."

The Tenth Doctor chose that moment to turn on Elizabeth. "And do you know," he said coolly, "why I know that you're a fake? Because you're such a bad copy. It's not just the smell, or the unconvincing hair, or the atrocious teeth, or the eyes – just a bit too close together – or the breath that could stun a horse… it's because _my_ Elizabeth, the _real_ Elizabeth, would never be stupid enough to reveal her own plan." He raised an eyebrow. "Honestly, why would you do that?"

"Because she's not a Zygon, you idiot," the Master commented sardonically, smirking at the Tenth. "That's the real one." He glanced to Elizabeth and raised one eyebrow questioningly. "Isn't that right, Your Majesty?"

Her eyes widened slightly in surprise, but she retained her composure. "You are, indeed, correct," she confirmed with a smile. "I _am_ the real Elizabeth!"

The Tenth Doctor was staring at her with a classic deer-in-the-headlights expression on his face. "Okay," he managed. "So… backtracking a moment, just to lend some context to my earlier remarks…"

"My twin is dead in the forest," Elizabeth informed them, ignoring him. "I am accustomed to taking precautions." She lifted her skirt, revealing a sheath strapped to her lower leg, and drew a golden dagger from it. "These Zygon creatures never even considered that it was me who survived, rather than their own commander! The arrogance that typifies their kind."

Clara frowned. "Zygons?"

"Men!"

The Master and the three Doctors all looked vaguely offended at this.

"I am curious, though," Elizabeth inquired of the Master. "How did you know it was me?"

He shrugged. "You were alone, and there were five of us. The smart thing to do, if you were a Zygon, would have been to either shift back to your normal appearance or have a couple of guards to protect you if we tried anything. That got me thinking, but I only figured it out once you sent that guard to be translated into the painting as soon as he questioned why you were showing us all of this."

She smiled, amused. "Well-reasoned."

"So, you actually killed one of those things?" Clara inquired.

"I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman," Elizabeth explained. "But, at the time, so did the Zygon." She looked to the Tenth Doctor. "The future of my kingdom is imperiled. Doctor, can I rely on your service?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Well, I'm going to need my TARDIS."

"It has been procured already," Elizabeth informed them. She smiled. "But first, my love, you have a promise to keep."

* * *

A breeze blew past the open-air tent outside the castle. The Tenth Doctor and Elizabeth stood before a minister, with the Master, the Eleventh Doctor, and the War Doctor on one side, and Clara on the other.

"I now pronounce you man and wife," the minister intoned. "You may kiss the bride."

Elizabeth immediately grasped the Doctor's face and kissed him passionately on the lips. Clara cheered, tossing a shower of rice over them.

"Is… is there a lot of this in the future?" the War Doctor wondered.

The Eleventh nodded thoughtfully. "It does start to happen, yeah."

"For me too," the Master added. "I even got married to a human at one point, if you can believe that." He sighed, remembering Lucy Saxon. "Of course, she later ended up murdering me, but you know how those things go."

Their conversation drew to a close a moment later, when the Tenth Doctor finally broke the kiss and pulled away.

"Godspeed, my love," Elizabeth said earnestly.

The Tenth smiled. "I will be right back," he promised, before jogging over to his TARDIS, throwing open the doors and disappearing inside. The other two Doctors, Clara and the Master followed him over.

"Right, then," the Eleventh said cheerily. "Back to the future."

As they entered the TARDIS, the Master wasn't surprised to see that it looked the same as it had the last time he'd been inside it, before his death and resurrection.

"You've let this place go a bit," the War Doctor observed, glancing around with interest.

"Ah, it's his grunge phase," the Eleventh commented. "He grows out of it."

The Tenth frowned, patting the console protectively. "Don't you listen to them!" he murmured.

A moment later, an alarm went off, and sparks flew from the central console. The entire room instantaneously snapped into a different appearance: this one was much more basic, with a simple central console and rows of round white circles lining the glowing walls.

"The desktop's glitching!" the Tenth called, adjusting several controls.

"Three of us from different time periods," the War Doctor theorized. "It's trying to compensate."

The Eleventh grabbed the Tenth's arm, pointing to the walls. "Look," he said excitedly. "The round things."

The Tenth grinned. "I love the round things."

"What _are_ the round things?"

"No idea." The Tenth shook his head, looking around with a smile.

"So, are we getting back to the future at some point, or would you three like to spend a few hours discussing interior decorating first?" the Master snarked.

A high-pitched whine from the console drew the Eleventh's attention: he hurried over, calling out, "Oh, dear, the friction core defibrillator!" and slammed down a lever. With another burst of sparks, the interior transformed again, this time to a more modern, space-age-style control room with smooth silver walls and a complex, neatly-arranged central console that looked more like what you might expect to find on a more modern spaceship.

"Ha!" the Eleventh said enthusiastically. "There, stabilized!"

The Master and the two other Doctors looked around the new control room with interest.

"Oh, you've redecorated," the Tenth Doctor remarked. He frowned. "I don't like it."

The Eleventh scowled. "Oh? Oh, yeah, you never do!" He refocused his attention on the console, adjusting the controls. "Okay, we're going to the National Gallery; the Zygons are underneath it."

Clara raised a hand, interrupting him. "Oh, no. UNIT HQ: they followed us there, to the Black Archive."

All four Time Lords turned to face her simultaneously, with identical grim expressions on their faces.

She paused. "Okay… so you've heard of that, then."

The Eleventh frowned, turning to the Master. "Hang on, how did _you_ know about it?"

"Learned about it during my time as Saxon," the Master explained offhandedly. "The job was dreadfully boring, so I occupied my free time by getting ahold of as many different government secrets as possible. UNIT, obviously, was at the top of the list." He smirked. "After all, a secret museum under the Tower of London, filled with alien technology and designed to keep Time Lords out? How could I resist?" Rolling his eyes a little, he shrugged. "Never managed to get in there, though. Not even a Prime Minister has that kind of security clearance."

"Damn," the Tenth Doctor muttered. "Zygons are bad enough, but if the actual UNIT soldiers get in there, it could be even worse."

"Wait… sorry, what's worse than a bunch of evil aliens in control of all the stuff I saw down there?" Clara questioned.

"The fact that, according to what I found out, the Black Archive has a self-destruct system, wired to a nuclear warhead powerful enough to wipe London off the map," the Master informed her.

"And, if the UNIT soldiers think using it is the only way to stop the Zygons…" the Tenth Doctor began.

"Then they'll do it without hesitation," the War Doctor finished, his eyes wide and concerned.

The Master turned away from the console, sighing. "Human stupidity: one of the most powerful forces in the universe."

"Hang on," the Eleventh realized. His eyes lit up. "The Space-Time Telegraph! Oh, brilliant!" He leapt towards one particular section of the controls, frantically adjusting the controls. "There's a communications system wired into the Black Archive, so they could contact me if they ever really needed to. If I can get through to Kate, then maybe we can talk her down."

The Master frowned. "Kate?"

"Kate Stewart, new head of UNIT," the Eleventh replied promptly.

The Master's eyes widened. "Stewart? Any relation to our old friend the Brigadier?"

"She's his daughter."

The Master frowned. "Oh, great," he muttered. "If she's anything like the old man, then London is history."

"Got it!" the Eleventh called triumphantly, activating the Space-Time Telegraph system. Immediately, a woman's voice echoed through the control room. _"You would destroy London?"_ she asked in an incredulous tone.

" _To save the world? Yes, I would,"_ another voice replied. Bizarrely, the two voices sounded exactly the same.

"One of the Zygons must've duplicated her to get into the Archive," the Master reasoned.

" _You're bluffing,"_ the Zygon countered on the other end of the link.

" _You really think so?"_ the woman – Kate Stewart – retorted. _"Somewhere in your memory is a man called Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart. I'm his daughter."_

There was a brief silence, which lasted about five seconds before the Eleventh Doctor had apparently had enough. He raised a microphone mounted on the console to his mouth and spoke into it. "'Science leads', Kate," he called. "Is that what you meant? Is this what your father meant?"

" _Doctor?"_ Kate's voice replied, sounding confused.

"Space-Time Telegraph, Kate," the Eleventh explained, "a gift from me to your father, hotlined straight to the TARDIS. I know about the Black Archive, and I know about the security protocol. Kate, please, _please_ , tell me you are not about to do something unbelievably stupid!"

" _I'm sorry, Doctor,"_ Kate managed. _"Switch it off."_

"Not as sorry as you will be," the Tenth Doctor snapped, grabbing another microphone. "This is not a decision you will ever be able to live with!" He locked eyes meaningfully with the Eleventh.

As the War Doctor fiddled with the controls, sparks flashed from various points on the console, more alarms blared, and the TARDIS rocked and shuddered, jolting from side to side. The three Doctors staggered, grabbing onto the console: Clara stumbled and nearly fell, but the Master caught her at the last moment, lifting her to her feet.

"Um… thanks," she commented, blinking and taking hold of the console to brace herself.

The Master shrugged. "No problem. Don't mention it." He grinned. "Seriously, though, _don't_ mention it: I've got a reputation to uphold, and helping humans isn't exactly something I do very often. Even when it's stopping a pretty girl from taking a fall."

Clara actually blushed at that, looking away and grinning. The Master smirked to himself, adjusting his scorched hoodie. _Still got it_ , he thought to himself.

"Kate!" the Eleventh Doctor shouted over the alarms. "We're trying to bring the TARDIS in: why can't we land?"

" _I said, switch it off!"_ Kate ordered, clearly addressing someone on her end of the connection.

"No, Kate, please, just _listen to me!_ " The Eleventh was cut off by a loud whine as the telegraph was disconnected.

"The Tower of London," the Master commented sourly. "Totally TARDIS-proof."

Clara's eyes widened. "How can they do that?"

"Alien technology plus human stupidity," the Eleventh explained. "Trust me, it's unbeatable."

The War Doctor, who had been mostly silent throughout this conversation, spoke up rather abruptly. "We don't need to land," he remarked, gazing down at something in his hand.

The Tenth frowned. "Yeah… yeah, we do, a tiny bit. Try and keep up."

"No, we don't." The War Doctor shook his head. "We don't. There is another way." He lifted the stasis cube that the Zygons had used, placing it on the console, and smiled. "Cup-a-Soup!"

The Master, the Tenth, and the Eleventh all turned to face the War Doctor, smiles breaking out on their faces as they realized what he had in mind.

The War Doctor blinked in confusion. "What is Cup-a-Soup?" he inquired.

As the Doctors began debating the specifics, the Master considered, glancing down at his scorched, tattered attire. After a moment, he made up his mind. "Ah, Doctor? Mind if I change clothes? I'm sure you've got something in that endless wardrobe of yours that'll fit me."

The Eleventh shrugged. "Sure, suit yourself." He pointed out of the control room, towards one of the nearby doors. "Third door on the right."

"Got it. Thanks!" With a chuckle, the Master dashed out of the room, hurrying down the hallway towards the wardrobe, and hoping to find a shower along the way.

After all, he reasoned, if they were going to confront the head of UNIT, he'd better look his best.

* * *

_Inside the Black Archive…_

As the two sets of identical doppelgangers – one a group of three UNIT employees, the other their Zygon duplicates – faced each other across the conference table, Osgood, Kate Stewart's assistant, was trying to hold in her rising panic.

"One word from you would cancel the countdown," the Zygon impersonating Kate mused.

"Quite so," the real Kate replied calmly.

"It's keyed to your voiceprint," the Zygon said.

"And mine alone," Kate finished.

"Not anymore." The Zygon smirked, turning to face the device. "Cancel the detonation!"

Kate promptly shot to her feet. "Countermanded!" she called out, immediately resuming the countdown.

The Zygon-Kate also stood. " _Cancel the detonation!_ " she shouted.

" _Countermanded!_ " the real Kate shot back.

The Zygon whirled to face Kate, her eyes wide. "We only have to agree to live," she said desperately.

"Sadly, we can only agree to die," Kate replied flatly.

"Please, Doctor," Osgood whispered, backing away from the table, clutching her scarf in both hands. "Please save us. Please save us… please save us… please save us…"

Behind Osgood, the painting known as either _**No More**_ or _**Gallifrey Falls**_ rested against one wall, overlooked, unnoticed, and ignored by the room's six occupants.

* * *

_Within the painting, concealed deep within the slice of real time representing the Fall of Arcadia, something had changed._

_In the middle of a ruined street, just a few yards away from where an exploding Dalek was frozen in midair, engulfed in a fireball, four tall figures dressed in dark clothing stood together, lined up in a row._

_As time started to resume, another nearby Dalek turned slowly, taking notice of the group. It started to advance, only for three of them to withdraw cylindrical metallic objects from their pockets and aim the devices at the Dalek._

_Beams of red, blue and green light lanced out from the three sonic screwdrivers, striking the Dalek dead-on and driving it backwards. It let out a deafening screech as it was propelled helplessly backwards across the rubble-strewn ground, gaining speed, until…_

* * *

With a resounding crash, the broken body of a Dalek burst out through the glass of the painting, tumbling into the room and crashing to the floor of the Black Archive. All six occupants of the Archive, humans and Zygons, whirled around, gazing in shock at the painting.

With a flash of light, four figures emerged, striding, side-by-side, out of the painting after the Dalek. The first was a young man with slicked-back dark hair, wearing a dark suit, coat and bow tie; the second was a slimly built man of about the same age, with spiked-up brown hair and a brown suit; the third was an elderly, gray-haired, bearded man, wearing dusty, battered clothing and a brown leather coat; and the fourth was another young man, this one with tousled blonde hair and a confident smirk, wearing a stylish, jet-black suit with a blood-red tie.

The four men walked forward, moving in perfect unison, and came to a stop in front of the stunned group around the table, as a young, dark-haired woman also pulled herself out of the painting, leaning on the frame to recover her balance.

"Hello," the old man began.

"I'm the Doctor," the young man in the brown suit continued.

"And I'm the Master," the blonde man in the black suit added with a smirk.

"Sorry about the Dalek," the young man in the bow tie remarked, waving a hand dismissively towards the broken, deactivated Dalek on the floor.

"Also the showing off," Clara muttered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, all! Hopefully you're all enjoying this story so far. :)
> 
> I really enjoyed writing this chapter, particularly the conversations between the Master and the three Doctors in the cell; it's really fascinating to play all of those characters against each other. Just to clarify, though, for anyone who might accuse me of bashing Eleven in this chapter, I'm not: I love Eleven, but I was writing from the Master's perspective, and knowing the Doctor as he does, I imagine he could potentially be horrified by what Eleven seems to be in danger of becoming and might try to knock some sense into him (literally, in this case).
> 
> Now, considering the Master's reaction to Eleven in this chapter, you might be wondering how I'm planning to explain his attitude (as Missy/the Mistress) towards the Twelfth Doctor during Series 8, as I want to try and make this at least a little . Answer: be patient, we'll find out soon. By the end of the story, this should hopefully all make some sense.


	3. Gallifrey Falls No More

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Master and the Doctors stand together in a desperate attempt to save both Earth and Gallifrey from destruction.

_Black Archive, Tower of London, 2013_

With an infuriated expression on his face, the Eleventh Doctor stalked up to the table. "Kate Lethbridge-Stewart," he snapped, glaring at one of the two Kates, "what in the name of sanity are you doing?!"

"The countdown can only be halted at my personal command," the other Kate said, causing the Doctor to whip around to face her as he realized he'd accidentally been addressing the Zygon. "There's nothing you can do."

"Except," the Tenth suggested, "make you both agree to halt it."

She shook her head. "Not even for three of you." Her gaze flicked over to the Master, her eyes narrowing and a flash of anger entering them. "And, as for you, you shouldn't even be here."

The Master turned to face her and spread his arms, an innocent expression that could best be described as "Who, me?" on his face. "Why is it always me?" he questioned. "I mean, come on, you've never even _met_ me before!"

Her eyes narrowed, and she scowled at him. "I know all about you, _Master_. My father used to tell me stories about you; he called you one of the worst monsters he'd ever known."

"Well, he wasn't exactly wrong," the Master admitted. "I did have justification for my actions, though, even if it was only in my own mind." He paced in a circle around the table, glancing speculatively at Kate. "You remind me of him, you know. I would never have said this to him, but I actually did respect the Brigadier. I saw him as nothing but an insect compared to me, of course, but I will admit that he had more courage and strength than any human I've ever known. He was a true soldier: a good man, and an honorable one."

"So you can understand why I'm doing this, then," Kate replied.

The Master shook his head. "No. Because your father might have done quite a few things that he regretted, but he always put the safety of his race first. What _you're_ doing, on the other hand? That's not an act of mercy, or the act of a soldier. It's the actions of a mass murderer, a monster." He smirked. "And, trust me, I know all about that."

"You're about to murder millions of people," the War Doctor added in his gravelly voice.

"To save billions," Kate retorted. "How many times have you made that calculation?"

"Once," the Eleventh said flatly. "That turned me into the man I am now." He frowned, looking to the Master for a moment. "I'm not even sure who that is anymore."

"You tell yourself it's justified, but it's a lie," the Tenth warned, walking up to the head of the table and leaning on it. "Because what I did that day was wrong. Just… wrong."

The Master smiled to himself, as he realized that his rant back in the prison cell had definitely affected the Doctor for the better.

"And, because I got it wrong," the Eleventh continued casually, "I'm going to make _you_ get it _right_." He, the Tenth and the Master each pulled a wheeled chair from each side of the table, spinning the chairs around to the head of the table as they sat down, propped up their feet on the table and folded their arms over their chests in perfect synchronization.

Kate blinked. "How?"

"Any second now," the Tenth claimed, "you're going to stop that countdown."

"Both of you, together," the Master added, smirking confidently.

"And then," the Eleventh continued, "you're going to negotiate the most perfect treaty of all time."

"Safeguards all around, fair on both sides," the Tenth put in.

"And we'll be supervising the whole thing, just to make sure you play nice with each other," the Master stated.

"And the key to perfect negotiation?" the Tenth asked.

"Not knowing what side you're on," the Eleventh concluded.

All three Time Lords hopped to their feet, the Doctors removing their sonic screwdrivers from their coat pockets.

"So, for the next few hours," the Eleventh began, "until we decide to let you out…"

"And depending on whether or not I've killed any of you…" the Master remarked.

"No one in this room," the Tenth followed up, "will be able to remember whether they're human…"

"Or Zygon," the Eleventh finished with a smile.

All three Time Lords leapt onto the table as the Eleventh and the Tenth raised their sonic screwdrivers, activating them and aiming the devices at the memory filters in the room's ceiling.

There was a burst of sparks from the filters, followed by a brilliant flash of light.

When the light faded, the Master, the Doctors, and Clara were unaffected, but all six of the humans and Zygons around the table were gazing around, wide-eyed and confused. The two Kates' eyes met, and identical expressions of shock and fear flashed across their faces. Simultaneously, they whirled towards the display that showed the countdown on the Archive's self-destruct and yelled, " _Cancel the detonation!_ "

With a confirming _beep_ , the countdown stopped.

The Eleventh smiled. "Peace in our time."

* * *

As the Tenth and the Eleventh paced around the table, debating peace terms with the two Kates, the Master wandered the aisles of the Black Archive, examining the vast collection of alien artifacts that UNIT had kept locked away. He chuckled to himself, tapping on the shelves with his fingertips. For once, the beat of his tapping fingers was random; the four-part rhythm that had once plagued him was completely gone from his mind.

As he rounded a corner, the Master caught sight of the War Doctor, sitting alone in a corner and sipping from a cup of tea. Acting on an impulse, he wandered over and sat down in a chair next to the older man. "You all right?" he inquired in a friendly tone.

The War Doctor blinked, glancing over to him. "Yes," he replied. He considered for a moment, gazing curiously at the Master. "I must admit, I never imagined that you'd eventually turn out like this."

The Master shrugged. "What can you say? This planet… it changes people. I spend a year living as a human, then died and came back, and then took a little fall through the Time Vortex. That sort of thing tends to scramble up the brains sometimes."

For a moment, the War Doctor actually seemed amused. His smile faded after a moment. "Human beings… how extraordinary they are."

"Agreed," the Master replied with a grin. "I'd never admit this, but I've never seen a race like them, throughout time and space. Not even the Time Lords were as enduring as humanity." He sighed, leaning back in the chair. "Humans will last until the end of the universe, a hundred trillion years from now. I should know; I've been there." A faint smirk flickered across his face. "They're the great survivors. And, despite all the issues I've had with them, I still respect them for that."

Nodding in agreement, the War Doctor looked up. The Master followed suit, turning to see Clara walking up to them.

She smiled, pulling over another chair and sitting. "Hello," she greeted them.

"Hello," the War Doctor replied quietly.

The Master smiled. "Hi."

Clara extended her hand to the War Doctor. "I'm Clara," she introduced herself. "We haven't really met yet."

The old man smiled. "I look forward to it."

For a few seconds, Clara gazed intently at the War Doctor, as if she was studying him. After a moment, he raised an eyebrow questioningly. "Is there a problem?"

Clara sighed. "The Doctor… my Doctor…" She glanced over her shoulder to where the Eleventh was standing next to the table. "He's always talking about the day he did it, the day he wiped out the Time Lords to stop the war."

"I can imagine," the Master commented dryly. He looked over to the War Doctor apologetically. "Ah… no offense."

"None taken," the War Doctor responded calmly. "Most people would talk about a thing like that."

"You wouldn't." Clara leaned forward, lowering her voice. "Because you haven't done it yet; it's still in your future."

The Master's eyes widened in surprise as he turned to face her. _He hasn't? Really?_

"You're very sure of yourself," the War Doctor remarked.

"He regrets it," she said, an urgent tone in her voice. "I see it in his eyes every day. He'd do anything to change it."

The Master's lips curved in a frown. _Is she really suggesting what I think she's suggesting?_

"Including saving all these people," the War Doctor countered. He gazed over to where his older self stood, discussing the peace treaty with the Tenth and the two Kates. "How many worlds has his regret saved, do you think?"

"Millions," the Master answered. He grinned ruefully at the War Doctor. "That man… he'll save more worlds than you can imagine. And for you, that's really saying something."

The War Doctor smiled. He looked over to the table, his eyes settling on the group around it. "Look over there. Humans and Zygons, working together in peace." After a long moment, he turned to Clara. "How did you know?"

"Your eyes," she explained. Her lips curled in a smile. "You're so much younger."

"Then, all things considered…" The War Doctor appeared to be considering something. Then he sighed. "It's time I grew up."

The Master frowned. "What do you mean?"

Seemingly ignoring him, the War Doctor looked up, seemingly focusing on something. "I've seen all I needed. The moment has come." He nodded slowly. "I'm ready."

"What are you talking about?" the Master inquired. He and Clara turned, glancing in the direction that he'd been gazing in, but no one was there.

"Yeah," Clara added. "Who were you talking to…?" She and the Master turned around, but the chair where the War Doctor had been sitting was empty.

The Master jumped to his feet, looking around wide-eyed in astonishment. "What the hell?" he breathed.

"Where did he go?" Clara wondered, standing up.

"And there… we… go!" the Eleventh called in delight from the table, as the four of them put the final touches on the treaty. "Excellent! Now, we should probably wait until the memory filter wears off before you two actually sign it, making sure it's legally binding and all that sort of thing, but this should all work out." He grinned, clapping his hands in delight. "I do love when this sort of thing works out, don't you?"

"And," the Tenth pointed out, "the best part…"

"Everybody lives," the Eleventh followed up. They exchanged grins.

As he stepped away from the table, the Eleventh noticed Clara and the Master and frowned. "What's wrong?"

"Your friend there evaporated, apparently," the Master explained, jerking a thumb towards the empty chair. "One second he was here, the next, _poof_ –" he spread his hands wide "– gone."

"Gone?" the Tenth questioned, raising an eyebrow as he came up behind the Eleventh. "What do you mean, _gone?_ "

"I mean _gone_ , idiot," the Master snapped, waving a hand in the direction of the empty chair. "No idea where he went."

"Did he say anything?" the Eleventh inquired.

"Yeah, actually, he did," Clara explained. "He said, well…" She frowned. "He said it was time to grow up."

"He's from earlier in your timeline than we thought," the Master explained. "He hasn't actually done it yet; he hasn't destroyed Gallifrey and the Daleks." His eyes narrowed. "And I'm pretty sure he's about to."

The Tenth and Eleventh exchanged a glance.

The Master's mind began to turn. He looked at them. "You know where he is, don't you?"

The Eleventh nodded. "Yes, we do."

"Well, then." The Master grinned. "What're we waiting for, people? Let's go!"

"You really have been spending way too much time on Earth, haven't you?" the Tenth muttered.

* * *

_Far, far away…_

The War Doctor stood alone, in an abandoned wooden shack on an uninhabited desert planet. Before him was a large golden box: the Moment, the greatest weapon ever created by the Time Lords. This was what he intended to use to destroy the Daleks, and Gallifrey in the process.

Before his trip into the future, the Moment had been a simple box, each of its sides inlaid with a different, complex pattern, with the muffled ticking of clockwork audible from within it. Now, however, it had transformed. It had unfolded and now resembled an elaborate, white-and-gold metal flower. Protruding from the center was a large stem, with a large, glowing red gem at the top.

"You wanted a big red button," the avatar of the Moment's Interface reminded him. She was standing at his side, in the guise of some blonde-haired woman who called herself Rose Tyler, as she'd been ever since he'd first brought the Moment into the shack. She looked up at the ceiling. "One… big… bang. No more Time Lords. No more Daleks." Her gaze lowered, coming to rest on him. "Are you sure?"

"I was sure when I came in here," the War Doctor said hoarsely. He lowered his head. "There is no other way."

"You've seen the men you will become," the Interface informed him.

"Those men…" The War Doctor smiled faintly. "Extraordinary."

"They were you."

"No." He shook his head. "They were the Doctor."

"You're the Doctor too," she pressed.

"No." His gaze hardened. "Great men are forged in fire. It is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame." His hand moved over the button, wavering. "Whatever the cost."

He stood there for a long moment, one that seemed like an eternity. The sound of his own soft breathing seemed like a hurricane in his ears. Every breath was a gale. He swore he could even hear the sound of his own hearts beating.

Abruptly, the sound of the Interface's voice cut through the deafening silence. "You know the sound the TARDIS makes?" she murmured. "That wheezing… groaning… That sound brings hope wherever it goes."

"Yes," the War Doctor agreed. "Yes, I like to think it does."

"To anyone who hears it, Doctor," she added. " _Anyone_. However lost." She smiled. "Even you."

And then, as if she'd summoned it, that familiar sound began to echo through the air. That familiar sound of hope, of light, of comfort.

The sound of the TARDIS.

The War Doctor turned in astonishment, just in time to see the air at the far end of the shack begin to glow with steady pulses of light. Slowly, as the echoing sound continued, two nearly identical shapes phased into view. As the light dimmed, both TARDISes solidified. The one on the right was slightly larger and a darker shade of blue, but otherwise they looked identical.

The doors opened. The Tenth emerged from the one on the left, now wearing a long brown coat over his brown striped suit, while the Eleventh, the Master and Clara exited the one on the right. The four of them walked forward, looking around and taking in their surroundings as they approached the War Doctor and the Moment.

"See, we told you," Clara exclaimed.

The Master nodded. "I knew it. He hasn't done it yet."

"Go away, now," the War Doctor said slowly. "All of you. This is for me." He turned his back on them, refocusing on the Moment.

"These events should be time-locked," the Tenth mused. "We shouldn't even be here."

"In which case, something must've let us through," the Master reasoned.

The Eleventh frowned. "But what?"

Invisible to everyone save the War Doctor, the Interface grinned. "You clever boys," she whispered.

"Go back," the War Doctor rasped. "Go back to your lives. Go, and be the Doctor that I could never be." He closed his eyes, as a tear ran down his face. " _Make it worthwhile_." He placed his hand lightly on the button.

The Tenth stepped forwards. "All those years, burying you in my memory," he said softly.

"Pretending you didn't exist," the Eleventh added. "Keeping you a secret, even from myself."

"Pretending you weren't the Doctor, when you were the Doctor more than anybody else." The Tenth sighed.

The Eleventh nodded, placing a supportive hand on the War Doctor's shoulder. "You were the Doctor on the day it wasn't possible to get it right."

The Tenth also stepped up alongside the War Doctor. "But, this time…" he said softly, placing his hand over the War Doctor's on the button.

The Eleventh followed suit. "You don't have to do it alone," he added, his eyes filled with a mixture of kindness and grief.

The War Doctor's eyes watered. "Thank you," he whispered.

And then, to the Doctors' surprise, a fourth hand placed itself over theirs.

The Doctors all looked up in astonishment, to see the Master standing before them, his hand on the button. He smiled faintly. "I've killed my fair share of worlds in the past. Might as well be part of this one."

The Eleventh's eyes widened. "Master…" he began.

"You know what Rassilon and the rest of those bastards on the High Council did to me, Doctor," the Master said harshly. "He made me what I am. I'm pretty sure I killed him already, but it's only fair that I make the rest of them pay for what they've done. They wanted to blow up all of time and space so they could become gods; trust me, they deserve this just as much as the Daleks." He smirked. "Besides, now I can help relieve some of that guilt you're always carrying around. This way, it wasn't just you."

"This is our choice," the Tenth snapped. "Our decision."

"Well, I'm making _my_ choice," the Master retorted. "And, for once, I choose to stand with you, Doctor." His eyes blazed with conviction. "I'm a Time Lord too. And I'm the only other one who survives this. So right now this is just as much my decision as yours."

That silenced the Doctors for a moment.

"You know," the War Doctor muttered, "they always did say at the Academy that the two of us would be the deaths of so many teachers." He chuckled weakly, and the Tenth, the Eleventh and the Master echoed him. After a few seconds, silence returned to the shack.

"What we do," the Tenth began, "is not done out of fear, or hatred. It is done because there is no other way."

"It is done," the Master added heavily, "because this is the only way to save everything in existence from the agony and suffering of this war."

"And," the Eleventh finished, "it is done in the name of the many lives we are failing to save." He closed his eyes for a moment, his outstretched hand shaking slightly until he calmed it.

For another endless instant, the four Time Lords stood, encircling the Moment, each with a hand on the trigger. The air in the shack was thick and still.

Then the Eleventh slowly lifted his head, turning to look at Clara. "What?" he asked. "What is it? What?"

"Nothing…" she murmured. The Master glanced in her direction, to see that there were tears in her eyes.

"No, it's something," the Eleventh said. "Tell me."

"You told me you wiped out your own people," she stammered. "I just… I never pictured _you_ doing it, that's all."

"Take a closer look," the Interface murmured softly to the War Doctor. She looked up at the ceiling again, and, with a sudden swirl of light and sound, their surroundings changed.

First, the room abruptly darkened, as if night had fallen in a matter of seconds. The TARDISes and the shack vanished into the darkness, leaving only Clara, the four Time Lords, and the Moment visible. And then the darkness suddenly lit up with a thousand glowing sparks of light, which coalesced into a landscape surrounding them.

"What's happening?" Clara asked.

"Nothing," the War Doctor answered. "It's a projection."

"It's reality around you," the Interface replied, although only the War Doctor could hear her.

While Clara initially had no idea what was happening, the Doctors and the Master recognized their surroundings immediately.

"This is Arcadia," the Master said softly, looking around as he took in the apocalyptic scene.

"The _Fall_ of Arcadia," the Tenth corrected him. "This is what's happening on Gallifrey right now."

What they saw was what had undoubtedly been a beautiful city, but was now a scene of death and destruction. Ships – _Dalek_ ships – flew through the smoke-filled sky overhead, firing bolts of blue light. Buildings exploded and toppled, their foundations blasted apart. Time Lord civilians fled, screaming in terror as the monsters pursued them, while the remaining soldiers fought back, their own numbers and firepower outmatched by the seemingly endless armies of Daleks.

"These are the people you're going to burn?" Clara asked incredulously, her voice shaking.

"There isn't anything we can do," the Tenth muttered.

"He's right," the Eleventh managed weakly. "There's no other way, there never was. Either we destroy our own people… or we let the universe burn."

And then, to their surprise, a voice spoke up.

"No."

All eyes turned to the Master.

"Doctor, you – both of you – said that you tried to forget him," he snapped, indicating the Tenth and the Eleventh. "But, because you did that, you forgot something much more important." His eyes gleamed. "You forgot yourself. You forgot who you are, who you _really_ are. And that's what you're doing right now."

Turning, he looked around the battlefield that surrounded them. "You keep saying that it's all fixed, that nothing can be different… but think about it!" He spread his arms, indicating all of them. "The first time you did this, it was just you. Just him." He gestured at the War Doctor. "But this time, look at us. All of us, brought here together, whether it's by the universe, destiny, or whatever the hell could cause this. But I do know this: all of this is happening for a reason. I am here, now, because you need me to be. You need someone who's brought you to your absolute lowest, someone who can bring out the worst in you, to remind you of who you really are."

"He's right," Clara said, stepping up to stand beside the Master. "Look at you, all of you. The warriors…" She nodded to the War Doctor and smiled briefly at the Master, before her gaze shifted to the Tenth. "The hero…" Finally, her eyes turned to the Eleventh. "And you."

The Eleventh walked slowly forward, until he was standing in front of Clara and the Master. "And what am I?" he asked.

The Master smiled, with what was quite possibly the softest, most genuine smile he'd ever worn. "Have you really forgotten, old friend?"

"Yes." The Eleventh nodded. "Maybe, yes."

Clara smiled weakly, tears welling up in her eyes. "We've got enough warriors." She sniffled. "Any old idiot can be a hero."

"Then what do I do?"

"What you've always done," she said. "Be a Doctor."

"You know," the Master commented, "all those years ago, when you told me what name you'd chosen for yourself, my first reaction was to laugh. That is, until you explained what it meant to you. You said it was a promise, to yourself and to everyone who ever met you."

"Yeah, you told me that once," Clara agreed. She placed her hands on the Eleventh's shoulders, looking into his eyes. "What was the promise?"

It was the Tenth who spoke first. "Never cruel or cowardly," he said, his voice cracking.

"Never give up," the War Doctor managed. "Never give in."

As if these words were a key, the image of Gallifrey suddenly dissolved around them, and they were back in the empty shack, with the two TARDISes and the Moment.

After a long moment of silence, his head low as he looked down at his feet, the Eleventh suddenly lifted his head, his eyes opening slowly and something new on his face. He looked up at his other incarnations, raising his eyebrows as if trying to convey something.

The Tenth's eyes widened. "You're not actually suggesting that we change our own personal history?" he asked incredulously.

The Eleventh shook his head, walking slowly away from the Moment. "We change history all the time," he replied. "I'm suggesting something far worse."

"And what, exactly, could _possibly_ be worse than that?" the Master inquired, raising an eyebrow.

The Eleventh turned in a slow circle, his gaze panning over the War Doctor, the Master, the Tenth and Clara in turn, and then spoke. "Gentlemen," he said, "I've had four hundred years to think about this." Then his eyes widened in realization, and he exclaimed, "I've changed my mind!" He walked forward, pointing his sonic screwdriver at the Moment and activating it.

With an electric hum, the Moment deactivated, the metallic stem and the glowing red gem at its top retracting into its central core as it folded back into the familiar ornate box.

The Master slumped, his shoulders sagging in relief as he exhaled slowly, taking several deep breaths.

"There's still a billion billion Daleks up there attacking!" the War Doctor called to the Eleventh, who had begun pacing in a circle around the room.

"Yep, there is," the Eleventh agreed. "There is!"

" _But_ , there's something those billion billion Daleks don't know," the Tenth realized.

"Because if they did, they'd be absolutely _terrified!_ " the Master added, as he also caught on to what the Eleventh had clearly realized.

"And they'd probably send for reinforcements!" the Eleventh cheered.

_Actually_ , the Master thought to himself, _in retrospect, I feel pretty stupid that I didn't realize this a lot sooner_.

"What?" Clara asked. "What don't they know?"

The Eleventh grinned in delight as he turned to face her. "This time," he said gleefully, "there's four of us."

The War Doctor's eyes widened in amazement as the realization hit him too. "Oh!" he exclaimed. " _Oh!_ Oh, yes, that is good! That is _brilliant!_ "

The Tenth gasped in shock. "Oh, oh! I'm getting that too! That is _brilliant!_ "

The Eleventh laughed triumphantly. "I've been thinking about it for centuries!"

"She didn't just show me any old future!" the War Doctor said jubilantly. "She showed me _exactly_ the future I needed to see!"

Unseen to everyone else, the Interface chuckled at him. "Now you're getting it," she remarked with a cheeky grin.

The Master frowned. "Sorry, what? Who are you talking about?"

"Oh, Bad Wolf girl, I could _kiss_ you!" the War Doctor shouted, ignoring him.

"Yep, that's gonna happen," the Interface remarked sarcastically, grinning at him in amusement.

The Tenth and the Eleventh turned to the War Doctor with expressions of confusion on their faces.

"Sorry, did you just say 'Bad Wolf'?" the Tenth asked.

"So what're we doing?" Clara interrupted. "What's the plan?"

"Yeah, I'd kinda like to know that myself," the Master agreed.

"Well," the War Doctor explained, "the Dalek fleets are surrounding Gallifrey, firing on it constantly."

"The Sky Trenches are holding," the Tenth added. "But, what if the whole planet… just disappeared?"

While the Master clearly realized exactly what they meant within seconds (as his eyes instantly bulged in shock), Clara frowned in confusion. "Tiny bit of an ask."

"Think about it!" the Master said, clearly getting it now. "The Daleks are all around the planet, firing constantly on it from all sides. If the planet disappeared, they'd be firing at each other instead; they'd destroy each other in their own crossfire!"

"Precisely," the War Doctor confirmed. "Gallifrey would be gone, the Daleks would be destroyed, and it would look to the rest of the universe as if they'd annihilated each other!"

Clara frowned. "But… where would Gallifrey be?"

"Frozen," the Tenth said with a smile on his face. "Frozen in an instant of time. Safe, and hidden away."

"Exactly…" the Eleventh added.

"Like a painting," the War Doctor finished.

All five faces were alight with delighted smiles. This could actually work! They could do it. They could actually _save_ Gallifrey!

The Master raised his hand. "Ah… for this to work, I think I'm going to need my own transport."

The Eleventh grinned. "Say no more, I've got just the place. Ever been to a cosmic junkyard before?"

"You know I have," the Master replied with an amused grin.

The War Doctor nodded. "Then there's no time to waste."

As the Doctors and Clara headed for their respective TARDISes, the Master started after them, when a soft sound from behind him brought him to a halt.

Turning around, he stepped over to the Moment, bending down slightly and examining the golden box.

"Oi, Master!" Clara shouted from the doorway of the Eleventh's TARDIS. "Let's go, we're burning daylight!"

"Right, right." Turning, the Master followed after her…

…unaware that his movements were being tracked by a pair of shimmering golden eyes.

* * *

_Gallifrey, on the last day of the Time War…_

The War Council's headquarters was a large, circular room, with a huge holographic table at its center. Time Lords in dark red uniforms were arrayed around the table, monitoring the furious battle raging outside the Citadel.

The doors of the War Room opened, and Gallifrey's High General strode into the room, his cloak swirling behind him.

"Are you sure it's him?" he demanded as he walked up to the table.

"Oh, yes, sir," his aide, Androgar, informed him, activating a holographic display on the table. A holographic projection appeared over the table, showing two words in all capital letters.

While the War Doctor's previous message, which had been engraved into a wall during the Fall of Arcadia several hours earlier, had been the words _**NO MORE**_ , this message was quite different.

In large block letters, the message read, _**GALLIFREY STANDS**_.

The General shook his head. "What's the mad fool up to now?" he wondered.

All Androgar could do was shrug.

Abruptly, an alert blared through the War Room, as one of the circular projection screens inset into the upper walls activated, displaying the face of a young man with dark hair and a bow tie. _"Hello, hello? Gallifrey High Command, this is the Doctor speaking."_

A second screen lit up next to the first, showing an image of another man with tousled brown hair and a brown coat. _"Hello!"_ he called. _"Also the Doctor. Can you hear me?"_

A third screen activated, showing the familiar bearded face of the War Doctor. _"Also the Doctor. Standing ready."_

Finally, a fourth screen lit up, showing the face of a young man with spiked-up white hair, standing in the interior of a TARDIS that looked like it had been hastily slapped together from whatever random components could be found. He grinned, with the practiced grace of a showman. _"Hello there, everyone! This is the Master, standing by."_

The General's eyes widened, and he groaned. "Oh, dear god, three of them. And the Master, too?! All my worst nightmares at once!"

" _Gentlemen,"_ the Tenth Doctor informed the Time Lords in the War Room, _"we have a plan."_

" _We should point out that, at this moment, it is a fairly terrible plan,"_ the Eleventh continued.

" _Which almost certainly won't work,"_ the Master added cheerfully.

" _Yeah, I was happy with 'fairly terrible',"_ the Eleventh retorted.

" _Ah, right. Sorry about that."_

" _Anyway…"_ the Tenth cut them off.

" _Oh, right! Right."_ The Eleventh's voice grew more serious and businesslike. _"We're currently flying our four TARDISes into your lower atmosphere."_

" _Damn, this thing could_ really _use some decent upgrades,"_ the Master muttered, cursing as his TARDIS shuddered and jolted a bit.

" _Hey, you're the one who put it together,"_ the Tenth reminded him.

" _Yeah, yeah, whatever."_

"Could we move this along?!" the General snapped.

" _Oh, yes, sorry,"_ the Eleventh apologized. _"So, anyway, we're positioning ourselves at equidistant intervals around the planet."_

" _And we're just about ready to do it,"_ the War Doctor stated.

The General frowned in total confusion. "Do what?"

The Eleventh grinned. _"We're going to freeze Gallifrey."_

A strangled gasp escaped the General's lips. "I'm sorry – _what?!_ " he spluttered incredulously.

" _Using our TARDISes,"_ the Tenth explained, _"we're going to freeze Gallifrey in a single moment in time."_

" _You know, like those stasis cubes?"_ the War Doctor elaborated. _"A single moment in time, held in a parallel, pocket universe."_

" _Except we're going to do it to the whole planet."_ The Eleventh's facial expression was absolutely delighted.

" _And all the people on it,"_ the Tenth finished.

The General shook his head, refusing to believe it. "Even if that were possible – which it _isn't_ – why would you do such a thing?" His piercing gaze focused on the Master in particular. "Any of you?"

The Master stared straight back at him, unperturbed. _"Because the alternative,"_ he said flatly, _"is burning it."_

" _And we've seen that,"_ the Tenth added.

The Eleventh nodded in confirmation. _"And none of us ever want to see it again."_

Frowning in confusion, the General took a step forward. "But… we'd be lost in another universe! Frozen in a single moment! We'd… we'd have nothing!"

" _You would have_ _ **hope!**_ _"_ the Eleventh insisted. _"And right now, that is exactly what you don't have!"_

"It's delusional!" the General scoffed. "The calculations alone would take… hundreds of years!"

" _Oh, hundreds and hundreds…"_ the Eleventh laughed flippantly.

" _But don't worry,"_ the Tenth reassured him.

The Master grinned. _"We started work on this a_ _ **very**_ _long time ago."_

Abruptly, the War Room's scanners came alive, more alarms going off as other incoming signals were received. The other screens in the room came alive with various other images, each one depicting a TARDIS. Most of them were in the familiar shape of a blue police box, but there were others as well: a stone column, a statue, a wardrobe, a grandfather clock, and more.

Inside each of those TARDISes was a man, working frantically at the controls. Each of the men was different in appearance, but they all had one thing in common; each of them was a Time Lord, an incarnation of either the Doctor or the Master.

" _Calling the War Council of Gallifrey, this is the Doctor,"_ an old man with white hair called out.

" _In fact,"_ the Eleventh said with a roguish grin, _"you might say we've been doing this all our lives!"_

Other voices began to call out, filling the War Room with snatches of reports and dialogue.

" _This is the Master, running calculations."_

" _Good luck!"_

" _Stand by."_

" _Ready?"_

" _Ready as I'll ever be, Doctor."_

" _Across the boundaries that divide one universe from another…"_

" _Saving Gallifrey. How very ironic…"_

" _Just lock on to these coordinates…"_

" _Oh, shut up, Doctor, I know what I'm doing!"_

" _And for my next trick…"_

* * *

In his TARDIS, the Eleventh Doctor called out, hailing the current incarnation of the Master. "I must say, I'm surprised your past regenerations would have agreed to help, even with all of this on the line."

In his ramshackle, hastily thrown-together TARDIS, the Master grinned. "I may or may not have given them the impression that, if we don't save Gallifrey, I'm supposed to die with the rest of the Time Lords." He shrugged. "They wouldn't have helped unless they knew there was something in it for them."

The Eleventh chuckled. "Nice touch."

* * *

The General rubbed his temples. "I didn't know when I was well off," he sighed. "All of them! The Doctor and the Master: all of their regenerations, past and present."

"Not just their past regenerations, sir!" Androgar exclaimed. "Their future ones too!"

* * *

_Inside one blue police box, a pair of gray eyebrows arched over narrowed blue eyes as a switch was thrown._

_In another TARDIS, this one a gleaming black wardrobe, ruby lips curved in an eerily familiar smirk as a gloved, feminine hand pulled down a lever._

* * *

The War Room shuddered, the palace around them shaking as the distant sounds of muffled explosions reached their ears.

"Sir!" Androgar shouted over the din. "The Daleks know that something is happening. They're increasing their firepower!"

After closing his eyes for a few seconds in quiet thought, the General arrived at the same conclusion that, no doubt, the Doctor and the Master already had; there was no other way. If Gallifrey was to have any chance of survival, this was the only course of action they could take.

"Do it," he whispered, a note of resignation in his tone. "Doctor, Master… just do it." His gaze focused, and new conviction swelled within him. " _Do it!_ "

The Master nodded, for once showing an actual bit of respect. While he felt nothing but loathing for Rassilon and the High Council, he'd always respected his people's military leaders, especially those who'd been forced to command the Time Lords' military forces during the Time War. _"Yes, sir,"_ he said with authority. _"All Masters, form up on my signal!"_

For the first time in as long as he could remember, the War Doctor felt his youthful spirit return, and he grinned. _"All Doctors, follow me! Get into positions!"_

As the fleet of TARDISes bore down on Gallifrey and the Dalek armadas surrounding it, the Eleventh flipped a switch and looked to the high ceiling. " _Geronimo!_ " he yelled at the top of his lungs.

" _Allons-y!_ " the Tenth chimed in, yanking on a lever in his own control room.

"Oh, for God's sake!" the War Doctor muttered, chuckling to himself. " _Gallifrey Stands!_ "

As all of the TARDISes plunged towards the planet, beams of pure-white light began to appear, snaking from one TARDIS to the next, linking them all as they wreathed Gallifrey in a web of light. Each trail was linked to one copy of the stasis cube that they'd stolen from the Zygons, each cube from a different point in its timeline. The original/furthest-in-the-future version, of course, was sitting on the Eleventh's central console.

One by one, the TARDISes accelerated, orbiting around Gallifrey faster and faster, the shifting bands of white light merging together as it formed an almost-solid sphere of light, encompassing the entire planet.

And then, suddenly, it was done.

* * *

To the current incarnation of the Master, watching from his ramshackle TARDIS in orbit around Gallifrey, the brilliant flash of light was blinding, even through the screens in front of him.

Unlike the Doctors, or even his own past incarnations, he was far enough away that he could see the whole spectacle. The glowing sphere of white light that had enveloped Gallifrey began to pulse, faster and faster. Then, finally, it briefly expanded outwards, and then instantaneously collapsed inwards. It shrank to a spot, and was gone.

Leaving nothing behind in the space it had occupied.

The Daleks were still there, of course, as were the assorted TARDISes. But Gallifrey itself had completely vanished, along with all the Time Lords on its surface.

Already, most of the TARDISes were fleeing, vanishing from sight as they reentered the Time Vortex. All of his other selves were leaving, as were most of the Doctors. Within seconds, the only ones still there, besides himself, were a trio of blue boxes – the Eleventh's, the Tenth's, and the War Doctor's – which were all accelerating towards him.

The Daleks were in total disarray. Ships were exploding, shattered and blasted apart by a hail of energy bolts as they were caught in their own crossfire. In addition, the massive gravitational disturbances caused by the abrupt disappearance of the planet were warping and distorting the surrounding space, acting like waves on an ocean and causing many Dalek ships to collide with each other.

As he watched in awe, the Master felt a hand on his shoulder.

He glanced over, and there she was. Her curly blonde hair extending down past her shoulders, her eyes shimmering with an ethereal light as she gazed at the destruction.

"It's an impressive sight," she admitted. "But you and I both know it's not enough."

The Master nodded. "You're right. Daleks are extraordinarily tough creatures; I seriously doubt just being caught in their own crossfire would be enough to kill them all. Some, at least, will probably survive, which contradicts history's record that they all die here."

"Unless you stop them." Her voice was quiet, thoughtful. "You know, in all likelihood, you won't survive. This isn't like what the Doctor was going to do before, triggering it from a safe distance."

"I know." He smiled faintly. "The Doctor will go down in history as the man who saved Gallifrey, once the truth comes out someday. While I'll be remembered as the man who wiped out the Daleks." A faint sigh escaped his lips. "Seems fair enough to me."

She stepped up beside him. "Why didn't you tell them?" she inquired.

The Master chuckled. "He'd only have tried to stop me. There's no way this can work out badly for him; with Gallifrey gone, the only ones who'll get hit by the blast are the Daleks. And me, of course, but that's beside the point."

She smiled at him. "I'll make sure your TARDIS stays stabilized until you reach the center of the gravitational disturbance, but you'll have to work fast once you get there."

"I always do."

The Moment's Interface nodded. "Good luck." Her form shimmered, and she was gone.

The Master looked around the makeshift control room, sighing to himself. Then his gaze fell upon the large metal object behind him, the by-now familiar gold-and-silver flower-shape resting against one wall.

He grinned. _Well, for once in my long life… it's time for me to be the hero._

* * *

As the Eleventh, the Tenth, and the War Doctor accelerated their TARDISes away from the vanished planet, dodging exploding Dalek ships and blasts of deadly energy, a hailing message came over the communications link.

" _Doctor?"_ the familiar voice of the Master called over the link. _"You all right?"_

"On our way right now," the Eleventh Doctor shouted, making sure he could be heard over the sound of continuing alarms. He and Clara were both clutching the control panel to prevent themselves from getting thrown about. "Set a course for Earth, the National Gallery in London: we'll meet up with you there."

" _Actually, slight problem there."_ The Master grinned wearily. _"Change of plans, Doctor: I'm not coming with you. This is where we part ways, I'm afraid."_

The Tenth frowned in confusion. _"Wait, what?"_

" _That crossfire and the gravity shifts won't be enough to wipe out the Daleks; at least some of their fleets will probably survive and escape unless we make sure they can't come back. Now, I know you normally wouldn't be willing to allow that. Fortunately, you don't have a choice in the matter."_

The War Doctor blinked. _"What do you mean?"_

The Master simply smiled, gesturing behind him with one hand. _"Like I told you, Doctor… it's as much my decision as yours."_

The Eleventh's eyes widened in shock and horror as he looked past the Master and saw what was secured to the floor behind him.

Clara gasped.

Clearly visible, just a few feet behind the Master, was the instantly recognizable, unfolded form of the Moment.

"Master, don't," the Tenth said urgently. "Please, don't do it. This isn't the way. You don't have to–"

" _Sorry, Doctor,"_ the Master cut him off, _"but I've already made my choice. And I can't take any chances that these Dalek bastards might escape. History says they have to be completely wiped out here, so I'm making sure that happens."_ He grinned. _"And, who knows, I might even live through this. If I do, you can bet I'll see you again, Doctor."_ His expression softened for a moment as he looked over at Clara. _"And you as well, Miss Clara Oswald."_

Clara stared fixedly at his image. A tear ran down her cheek.

The Eleventh leaned forward, glaring at the Master's image. "Master, don't," he pleaded. "You won't survive! Please, I'm begging you, _don't!_ "

For a moment, Clara swore she could see tears in the Master's eyes. Then his familiar grin returned, and he grasped a large lever. _"Good luck, Doctor,"_ he said. _"As a very wise man once said… make it worthwhile."_

Four voices shouted out as one, each filled with despair and fear and sadness.

" _Master!_ "

The Master smirked, his usual enthusiasm returning, and laughed like a maniac as he slammed down the lever. " _Here… come… the drums!_ "

* * *

As the three Doctors' TARDISes rose up and away, the Master's small, makeshift TARDIS – basically just the core, the control panel, and a mostly solid metal outer shell around the control room for shielding – plummeted into the heart of the Dalek armada.

The Master bounded back and forth from one panel to another, frantically making adjustments and setting his systems to guide his vessel into its desired alignment.

Through all of this, the Interface stood behind him, one hand resting on the Moment as she held it in place with her own energy. She'd been with the Master ever since they'd left that deserted planet, standing beside him, watching over him. She'd spoken to him for the first time when he'd arrived on that TARDIS junkyard, and had offered to help. With her advice, he'd been able to find exactly the right parts to construct his own rudimentary TARDIS out of the remains of several old ones. With his own TARDIS ready, he'd made a quick stop back at the old wooden shack on the desert planet, and had retrieved the Moment box from where he and the Doctors had left it. As they set up their preparations to intervene in the final battle, he'd been planning to do this in the event that their plan either failed to save Gallifrey, or saved the planet but failed to destroy the Daleks.

Finally, he was there, at the heart of the battle. Dalek fleets were being torn apart all around him, but some were turning, trying to pull away.

"It's time!" the Interface warned him. "I can't hold your ship any longer; it has to be now."

Nodding, the Master staggered across the tilting, warping floor to the Moment. He managed to push himself to his feet, spreading his feet apart to brace himself, and took hold of the railing with one hand and the Moment's glowing red gem with the other. He closed his eyes, serene amid the chaos, and took a deep breath, as if gathering up everything, every part of himself, and storing it someplace deep within him where he could always find it.

_Have this with my very best wishes, Daleks,_ he thought. _And good luck to you, Doctor._

His lips curved in that familiar smirk.

And he slammed down the button.

* * *

From their TARDIS, the Eleventh Doctor and Clara saw the Moment's activation first. First, there was a flash of pure white light, from deep within the helpless, tumbling Dalek fleets.

And then the explosion, like the shattering destruction of the world.

A wave of blazing golden fire swept over the Daleks' ships, instantly igniting them in flames and consuming them as it passed, the Moment's wrath unleashed upon the physical plane and warping all of reality around it.

In the final moments before his TARDIS vanished into the Time Vortex, the Doctor looked back. He caught one final glimpse of the site of Gallifrey, now completely filled with a mass of fire and brilliant light…

And then the firestorm obscured all clarity.

* * *

_National Gallery, London, England, 2013_

The War Doctor dropped a sugar cube into his tea. "I don't suppose we'll ever know if we actually succeeded," he stated calmly. "But, at worst, we failed doing the right thing, as opposed to succeeding in doing the wrong."

Clara smiled faintly. "Life and soul, you are," she murmured.

The four of them – the Eleventh, the Tenth, the War Doctor, and Clara – were all in the National Gallery. All three of the Doctors' TARDISes were lined up against the far wall.

The Eleventh and the Tenth were standing a few feet away, examining the Time Lord painting of the Fall of Arcadia. They were each wearing their glasses again.

"What is it actually called?" the Tenth mused.

"Well, there's some debate," the Eleventh replied. "It's either called _**No More**_ or _**Gallifrey Falls**_."

The War Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Not very encouraging," he observed.

"How did it get here?" the Tenth wondered.

The Eleventh removed his glasses, folding them and placing them in his coat pocket. "No idea," he answered.

The Tenth chuckled. "There's always something we don't know, isn't there?"

"One should certainly hope so," the War Doctor said cheerfully as he stood up and walked over to them. "Well, gentlemen, it has been an honor… and a privilege."

"Likewise," the Tenth responded.

The Eleventh nodded in respect. " _Doctor_."

The War Doctor smiled. "And, if I grow up to be half the man that you are, Clara Oswald…" He turned to Clara. "Then I shall be happy indeed."

Clara grinned. "That's right, aim high." She stood, taking the War Doctor's hand, and kissed his cheek.

As the War Doctor took a step away, he paused, turning back to the other three. "I won't remember this, will I?" he said in realization.

The Eleventh shook his head soberly. "Our time streams are out of sync. So, no, you can't retain it."

"So I won't remember that I tried to save Gallifrey, rather than burn it." The War Doctor nodded slowly. "I'll have to live with that." He smiled. "But for now, in this moment… I am the Doctor again." He gazed at each of them in turn. "Thank you."

The Eleventh and the Tenth inclined their heads in respect.

After a long moment of silence, the War Doctor turned to look at the three TARDISes lined up against the wall. He glanced from one to the other, blinking.

After a few seconds, he spoke up again. "Which one is mine?"

The others smiled in amusement, and the Tenth and Eleventh motioned towards the one on the far right.

"Ah, right." The War Doctor nodded to his future selves and Clara, and then opened the door of his TARDIS and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. After a moment, it began to pulse with light, and the familiar sound filled the air as it faded away.

After a long moment, Clara spoke up. "Do you think he could've made it?" she murmured. "The Master, I mean." She looked to the Eleventh. "You told me he's died before, and he came back from that."

"Actually, by this point, I'm pretty sure he's died about half a dozen times," the Eleventh replied matter-of-factly.

The Tenth grinned in agreement. "Yup. But somehow, he's always managed to come back. So if anyone could survive that, it's him." He removed his glasses and glanced back at the painting, before turning towards his TARDIS. Like the War Doctor, however, he didn't go more than a step before turning around. "By the way, I know I won't remember any of this either, so you might as well tell me."

The Eleventh tilted his head. "Tell you what?"

"Wherever it is we're going that you don't want to talk about."

After a long hesitation, the Eleventh replied. "I saw Trenzalore," he explained. "Where we're buried. We die in battle, among millions."

The Tenth shook his head. "That's not how it's supposed to be."

"That's how the story ends. Nothing we can do about it." The Eleventh sighed. "Trenzalore is where you're going."

After a moment, the Tenth shrugged. "Well, never say nothing." He shook the Eleventh's hand. "Anyway, it's good to know my future's in safe hands." He and the Eleventh exchanged nods, before he turned to face Clara. "Keep a tight hold on him, Clara," he said with a friendly smile.

She grinned. "On it."

The Tenth kissed Clara's hand in a courtly fashion, then straightened up and strode over to his TARDIS. As he opened the door, he glanced back over his shoulder. "Trenzalore," he considered. "Really need a new destination, because…" He smiled. "I don't want to go." He entered the TARDIS and closed the door behind him, after which it began to flash with light and slowly faded away.

The Eleventh smiled sadly. "He always says that." He walked over to the painting again, gazing thoughtfully at it.

"Need a moment alone with your painting?" Clara murmured as she walked up to him.

He sighed. "How did you know?"

She grinned. "Those big, sad eyes. I always know." She stroked his face and planted a gentle kiss on his cheek, before making her way back to his TARDIS. "Oh, by the way, there was an old man looking for you; I think it was the curator." She smiled at him, and ducked into the TARDIS.

Now left alone, the Eleventh Doctor sat down on the bench, gazing at the painting.

"I could be a curator," he remarked out loud, to no one in particular. "I'd be great at curating. I'd be… the Great Curator." Looking around the large, empty hall, he smiled. "I could retire and do that. I could retire and be the curator of this place."

A moment later, another voice pierced through the silence.

"You know, I really think you might."

The Doctor's head snapped up, his eyes wide, as he heard that voice. It was old, but it was impossibly familiar nonetheless.

Slowly, he stood, turning to see the instantly-recognizable features. "I never forget a face," he stated.

"I know you don't," the man in front of him replied in a friendly manner. He was elderly in appearance, with white hair and a ruddy complexion, and was wearing a tweed suit and leaning on a cane. "And in years to come, you might find yourself revisiting a few. But just… the old favorites, eh?" He winked, before turning and examining the painting more closely. The Doctor stepped up alongside him.

"You were curious about this painting, I think?" the Curator questioned. "I acquired it under remarkable circumstances. What do you make of the title?"

"Which title?" the Doctor asked. "There's two: _**No More**_ or _**Gallifrey Falls**_."

The Curator shook his head, smiling. "No, you see, that's where everybody's wrong. It's all one title: _**Gallifrey Falls No More**_." A mischievous gleam came into his eyes. "Now, what would you think that means, eh?"

The Doctor's eyes widened as his mind turned over the possibilities of this revelation. "That Gallifrey didn't fall," he realized. "It worked! It's still out there!"

"I'm only a humble curator, I'm sure I wouldn't know."

"Then where is it?" the Doctor pressed.

"Where is it indeed? Lost – shhh!" The Curator raised an index finger to his lips. "Perhaps. Things do get lost, you know. Now, you must excuse me." He smiled. "Oh… you have a lot to do."

"Do I?" The Doctor's eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. "Is that what I'm supposed to do now? Go looking for Gallifrey?"

"Well, that's entirely up to you," the Curator assured him. "Your choice, eh? I can only tell you what I would do, if I were you. Oh, if I were you…" They both laughed. "Perhaps I was you, of course. Or, perhaps… you are me." He shook the Doctor's hand. "Congratulations."

"Ah, thank you very much," the Doctor chuckled.

"Or perhaps it doesn't matter either way. Who knows? Who… knows?" The Curator tapped the right side of his nose on the last word. He smiled, shook the Doctor's hand, and then turned and left.

Before he could exit the room, however, the Doctor called after him, "What about the Master? What happened to him? Do you know?"

The Curator turned back to face him. At first, he seemed surprised, but then he smiled. "Ah, yes, him. Well, I can't tell you for certain. But, I will say this… if you do see him again, it may not happen in the way you imagine. That one was always full of surprises." Chuckling in amusement, he rounded the corner and was gone.

Left alone, the Doctor turned and sat again, looking back at the painting. He smiled, a thoughtful expression on his face as he considered this new information.

"Well, if I do see you again someday, Master," he murmured under his breath, "I'll just have to hope you've still changed."

* * *

_Somewhere, far away…_

A trail of light and fire passed across the horizon, before it finally slammed to earth with a brilliant flash of light and a deafening roar.

After several long minutes, when the shockwave and the resulting tremors had died down, the impact crater became clear as the massive cloud of smoke and dust began to clear. The smoke from the raging fire continued to rise into the star-filled night sky, as the shattered remains of the vessel that had fallen from the sky lay strewn about the bottom of the huge crater.

Abruptly, a large chunk of debris was heaved to one side. The smoke billowed, and the Master emerged, coughing and choking as he dragged himself out of the wreck of his makeshift TARDIS. His clothes, once again, were scorched and torn, and his hair was in disarray. Crawling and stumbling through the debris, he finally reached a clear area and collapsed onto his side, rolling over onto his back and staring up through blurring vision at the smoke-filled sky.

_Okay_ , he managed to think to himself through the pain. _I have literally_ _ **no**_ _idea how I survived that one_.

Then a white-hot bolt of agony lanced through him, and he looked down to see a jagged piece of metal shrapnel protruding from his side. He gasped in pain, his head falling back. Weakly, he grasped the metal with one hand. Slowly, agonizingly, he pulled it from his body, until the jagged, broken end was yanked free and he tossed it aside.

All the same, he knew it was too late. That shrapnel had pierced too close to his hearts; he couldn't heal from that. The wound was fatal.

Which meant, any second now…

And, sure enough, he felt it. The familiar surge of energy, welling up from deep within him. The beginning of his regeneration.

The last time he'd been this close to death, he'd forcefully suppressed the regeneration, making himself mortal and causing himself to die permanently. This time, however, he allowed the process to do its work.

As he lay back and prepared for the end, the Master grinned weakly. "All things considered," he gasped. "I can't say… I've got any regrets." His body began to tremble, and a faint golden glow appeared in his hands. "I got… to die… a hero. Just like you always do." He felt that, even though he knew no one could hear him, he should have some kind of last words. The Doctor always did, after all, so he might as well try it out.

The golden glow spread up his arms to his face, and his eyes lit up, glowing with an inner light. He smiled. "It's finally time… my work's done. I can rest now."

After a long moment, he mumbled, "I think I might like to try something a little… different… this time. Just for a change of pace."

Slowly, his eyes drifted shut, and he sank into the warm darkness, letting his failing body relax.

_I did well this time_ , he thought. _I can go_.

His eyes closed, and, for a split second, both of his hearts slowed, and stopped beating.

The current regeneration of the Master died smiling.

And then his eyes snapped open, filled with light, and he screamed.

* * *

_Clara sometimes asks me if I dream._

" _Of course I dream," I tell her. "Everybody dreams."_

* * *

As the Master's yell continued, his head and arms snapped up and back, geysers of golden light pouring from them. His body was enveloped in brilliant light and sound, filling the dark night sky with the universe's most spectacular natural fireworks display. The regeneration of a Time Lord, whatever the circumstances, was always an amazing sight.

After a few seconds, the light and sound finally faded away, and the darkness of night returned.

* * *

" _But what do you dream about?" she'll ask._

" _The same thing everybody dreams about," I tell her. "I dream about where I'm going."_

* * *

After a long moment of silence, a hand reached up, grasping a nearby metal bar and using it as support.

A pair of cool blue eyes opened, gazing up at the sky.

Slowly, the figure clambered to its feet, looking down at itself. The eyes widened in surprise and confusion.

"Well," a high-pitched voice commented with a trace of annoyance. "This is a little more _different_ than I expected."

* * *

_She always laughs at that. "But you're not going anywhere – you're just wandering about!"_

_But that's not true. Not anymore._

* * *

Standing amid the wreckage, where the Master's body had lain a few seconds earlier, was a young woman. She was still wearing the Master's tattered suit, which sagged on her slim frame. It didn't help that she was about five inches shorter than the Master had been before. She had shoulder-length, dark brown hair, pale skin and cool blue eyes.

She frowned, adjusting her now oversized jacket. "Well, then," she decided. "First order of business: get some decent-sized clothes." Her eyes widened in disgust. "Oh, _god_ , I haven't been shopping for girl's clothes once in my entire life! How do I pick anything? Do I even have a fashion sense?" As if realizing something, she stopped abruptly, tapping her throat with one fingertip. "Huh. Interesting. Apparently I'm one of those nonstop-talker types now. Oddly cheerful, too, not that that's changed from the last one." She raised an eyebrow. "And the voice is _really weird!_ Oh, well, guess I'll just have to get used to it."

Placing her hands on her hips, she looked around, taking in her surroundings. The Moment was long-gone, its purpose fulfilled, and the makeshift TARDIS that had brought her here had been completely destroyed, smashed into pieces by the crash.

Fortunately, as always, the Master had developed a backup plan, on the off chance that he could survive the Moment's detonation but lost his new TARDIS in the process.

Removing a familiar device that resembled an oversized wristwatch, she strapped it to her own arm, making sure it was securely in place.

"Hmmm…" she wondered aloud, tapping her chin. "Well, I can't really call myself the Master anymore, now can I? So… the Mistress, I suppose? No, that's way too dominatrix-y." She blinked. "Then, in that case… Missy, maybe?" After a moment, she smiled. "Yeah, I like that. Missy."

* * *

_I have a new destination._

* * *

The Mistress – or Missy, as she was now referring to herself – brushed a lock of brunette hair behind her ear, smiling as she looked down at the vortex manipulator that her predecessor had taken from Clara Oswald in the UNIT Black Archive. Tapping in a series of coordinates, she grinned as she entered in the final calculations, pinpointing a location for her to travel to. _First order of business: get out of these rags, and pick up some decent clothes._

"Well, then," she murmured, looking up at the sky. "Someday, I'll see you again… Doctor." An eerily familiar smirk flickered across her face, and she pressed the final button.

With a flash of light, Missy's body glowed with energy, and she vanished, teleporting away to an unknown destination. In her wake, the landscape quickly returned to its normal state, the silence broken only by the faint crackle of the dying fires.

* * *

_My journey is the same as yours, the same as anyone's. And, if I happen to cross paths with the Master again in the process, well… we'll see how that goes when we come to it._

_It's taken me so many years, so many lifetimes, but at last I know where I'm going. Where I've always been going._

_Home. The long way round._

* * *

_National Gallery, London_

As he made his way down the corridor, the Curator smiled to himself. _He'll be fine. He doesn't know it yet, but he's got so much ahead of him. So many more lives to live, so many more battles to fight, and so many more horizons to pursue._

Lost in thought, he rounded another corner, and suddenly came to an abrupt halt as he saw someone ahead of him. Another man, taller than the Curator. He had black hair streaked with gray and a jet-black goatee, with pale skin and dark, intelligent eyes. He wore a black suit, and he also leaned on a cane.

"You," the Curator breathed. He smiled. "It has been a while."

"Very true," the other man replied gravely.

The Curator chuckled. "It seems I'm not the only one who enjoys revisiting an old face now and then."

"Indeed." The other man glanced around the gallery. "A curator, eh? That does sound like you. You always loved history."

"I do my best." The Curator shrugged. "So, what do I call you now? Do you still go by…"

"No," the other man cut him off. "Seems a bit too presumptuous and grandiose these days. I've actually taken up teaching, if you can believe that. I find that a professor is a much better title."

"Well, that does fit very well," the Curator noted. He smiled, shaking the Professor's hand. "It's good to see you."

"You as well," the Professor agreed. "It's been ages since this day happened, for both of us."

"Very true," the Curator agreed. Something of a dark look came across his face. "I do wish things had turned out better between us in the years after that, though."

The Professor shrugged. "I was still me. There's nothing I could have done about that."

"No, I suppose you couldn't," the Curator agreed, showing acceptance instead of anger. "It's all right; that was long ago, and I do understand."

The Professor glanced past him, as the familiar sound of a departing TARDIS – the Eleventh's – reached their ears. "He was just here, then?" he inquired.

"Yes," the Curator answered promptly. "I gave him that message, the one about Gallifrey. He'll be out there searching before long." He smiled warmly. "Fortunately, as we both know, he will eventually find it. Not for some time, though: first there's that nasty business on Trenzalore to take care of, and he wasn't the most social of fellows for a while after that was over."

"Oh, trust me, I remember it very well," the Professor replied. "But he was no less of a great man than the rest of them."

The Curator smiled, bowing his head slightly. "Thank you, old friend." After a moment, he had an idea. "So, if you've got some time… would you like to join me for afternoon tea? Just for old time's sake?"

The Professor considered that for a moment, and then he actually smiled (a very rare sight, coming from him). "All right, then, my friend. Lead the way."

They exchanged nods, each pausing for a moment of silent contemplation as they thought of all the countless years they'd lived, fighting against each other at some times and standing together at others. Then the Curator took the Professor's arm, and they strolled off, down the hallway, through the front doors, and out of the National Gallery into the warm sunlight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And, finally, here we are! Sorry to those who wanted the story to be longer, but I decided that it came to a satisfying conclusion here, so there was really no point in dragging it out. Hopefully you guys all enjoyed how it turned out!
> 
> My younger version of Missy in this chapter, by the way, would be portrayed by Lauren Cohan (if you don't know who that is, she plays Bela Talbot on Supernatural, Maggie on The Walking Dead, and Rose on The Vampire Diaries). I picked that actress because she seems to look a lot like a younger version of Michelle Gomez, who plays Missy in Series 8 of Doctor Who. My explanation for the younger appearance is that Missy here is a long way away from her next meeting with the Doctor, so during that time her body aged into the appearance that we see her with in Series 8. That's also why she's so obsessed with the Doctor by the time we see her next, as she's become a bit unhinged over all the time she spent as Missy. I was also able to use this story to create a connection between the Master and Clara, which partially explains why Missy was so determined to make sure Clara and the Doctor were brought together in the first place. The vortex manipulator also explains how Missy was able to hop between time periods to set those events in motion.
> 
> (And yes, the Professor would be an older version of the classic Master, played by an older version of Roger Delgado or Anthony Ainley [or somebody who could pass for them, similar to the way David Bradley was cast to replace William Hartnell as the First Doctor], as I loved the idea of an older Master returning alongside Tom Baker as the Curator so I had to put that in at the end.)
> 
> Now, obviously I know that none of this is canon: I just wanted to provide my own explanation for how those events could have happened, and in the process give a real farewell to the John Simm incarnation of the Master. Hopefully, I succeeded in doing so, and I hope you all enjoyed this story!
> 
> I may do other stories with this version of the Master at some point, but I'm not sure yet. If you guys have any suggestions, please feel free to let me know!


End file.
